Once Again, There Is No Place For Violence In Politics. (Hour 1)

also had already visited two other homes of legislators in Minnesota that night, hunting them down.

Also, we have heard now confirmed that Wisconsin U.S.

Senator Democrat Tammy Baldwin was on the hit list as well.

Reportedly other Wisconsin elected officials were on the hit list.

And I played the audio cuts.

before the break there.

My point is not to blame this on, I don't think that every MAGA person or Trump supporter is a murderer or would do this, absolutely not.

But what ticks me off is that MAGA and Republican folks who, many of whom know better, Bill McCushion, who tweeted this out about one of the people,

who I consider a friend and a really smart guy.

Trying to make this about, well, you know, this alleged assassin was nominated by walls onto a board, and somehow this guy was a Democrat.

Well, if we just heard from the audio, clearly the guy was his own roommates, and we were both Trump supporters, and that there's alleged assassin listened to info wars by Alex Jones.

Again, I'm not saying that means that all MAGA people are murderers, not at all.

But why the heck are Republicans and manga trying to paint this guy as a Democrat would clearly he wasn't he was reappointed the governor preceding The Minnesota star Tribune Confirmed this That the governor preceding walls was the was the governor who appointed this guy There's all kinds of state boards and governors don't know all the appointees personally So walls just reappointed this guy, you know like done decent job with the board, I guess

That doesn't make him a Democrat.

And in fact, we know he's Republican.

So I think we just need to set the records straight on that.

But let's take the partisanship out of this and look at the tragedy here.

And again, look at the rhetoric.

The people in politics and people in the media use today to gin things up.

And by the way, do you know what the makeup of the state legislature is?

in Minnesota.

On the Senate side, Democrats held a one seat majority, 34 to 33.

In the House of Representatives of Minnesota, Democrats were tied, 67, 67, so the speaker broke the vote.

So the line of thinking is, this idiot, this assassin,

Thought that by knocking off a Democrat from each house that would give the Republicans the control in the Minnesota legislature The rhetoric that Trump uses when he tells people to the proud boys another white supremacist group to stand by and stand back It matters because yes the vast majority of

People on both political spectrums are rational thinking people, but there's always some nuts out there that aren't.

And when you feed that, that ultimately has dire consequences.

Didn't have time to get into it at length today, but I was enormously proud of people that turned out over the weekend at the No Kings rallies protests, all hundreds of thousands of people.

largely, mostly 98% peaceful.

A couple of people, a couple of yahoo is an LA, but otherwise by and large peaceful.

Contrast that with Trump's birthday parade, allegedly for the 250th anniversary of the army, a small performance, a small outcome there was not what Trump had hoped.

But I'm so proud of people that came out non-violently to exercise their Second Amendment rights over the weekend.

Well done.

855-752-4842.

Let's go quickly to Tom in Madison on MDX.

Tom, thanks for calling.

Just a minute left.

What do you

got?

Hey, thanks for checking my call.

Yeah, I think we're at the point now where we really need to demand the resignation of Donald Trump.

and i think also there are a lot of republicans who are wonderful people blah blah blah but maga republicans who don't condemn

the actions of things like monetizing the presidency with watches and and bibles and hats and stuff like that.

Moga Republicans who don't condemn using the US military against civilians.

Moga Republicans that don't condemn that are basically giving tested approval.

So I think we need to up the bar for that.

If you really don't approve of that, we need to hear from legislators.

We need to hear

actual statements of condemnation for those

actions.

Appreciate the call, Tom.

Thank you so much.

I would simply add to that that it took hours for Donald Trump to put out a statement through a spokesperson.

And then when asked by a reporter later in the day, whether he planned to call Governor Walls of Minnesota after this tragedy, he'd say, I don't know, maybe.

And it went on to say that Walls is a terrible governor.

The callousness.

I really don't give a damn attitude.

It's sick.

It's absolutely sick.

Let's go quickly to Ben and Eau Claire, WCFW.

Ben, 30 seconds, it's yours.

What do you got?

Yeah, I just wanted to say, I think we all need to sit back and wait.

There's a lot of finger pointing on what side this guy was on.

Was he Maga?

Was he a Democrat?

The Maga picture doesn't make sense.

There's one crying guy that says he was his roommate.

When this guy is married and his address from his affiliation and his appointment from walls clearly shows he's

But the press has already determined that this guy is a roommate and interviewed him directly, but it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter to me.

I'm ticked off at Republicans in MAGA.

Why immediately do they try to point the guy as a Democrat when clearly he's not?

It's gone both ways.

No,

the problem is that MAGA is immediately jumping to this, Ben.

I'm not going to entertain that.

I'm not going to entertain that.

It's the Maga and Republicans and people who know better, who immediately try to politicize this on the right.

And it's sick.

It's absolutely sick.

And that's why I played the cuts.

Not to politicize it, but to set the record straight.

And great reporting by journalism on the ground at Minnesota Star Tribune and WCCO.

Back with Kelder Royce Nex, as the title of the show on the Civic Media Ready Network.

I was

a stranger in this city Out of town

Welcome back to the title show of the Civic Media Radio Network, where it is now 35 minutes past the hour of two o'clock on this Monday, June 16th, 2025.

Glad to have you along with us.

Joining us at the table here in studio in downtown Madison, the state senator from the 26th district here in the state of Wisconsin, representing majority of Madison, at least in the west side and parts of other little suburb areas thereof.

State Senator Keldor Roy, Senator, always a joy you stop you by, particularly your commitment to stop.

by us often as you can hear on a weekly basis during the budget process.

Of course, you're a member of the Joint Finance Committee, one of four Democrats who sit on the Republican-controlled committee, which is writing the budget right now.

But I wondered if you wouldn't mind, I just wanted your take in the last half hour we spent on the news that I think is on almost everybody's mind over the weekend.

This assassination, we'll cover Tim Walz, I'm going to sort of call it the assassination of the former speaker of there, they call it the House.

in Minnesota versus the assembly.

She and her husband were assassinated in cold blood.

Another state senator and his wife were gravely injured and thank God are appeared to be on recovery.

And now in the last hour and a half, we've learned via the Minnesota police department or their briefing that two other legislators were hunted, I'll use that term, one of whom was not home.

she had her family on vacation and then another one that he'd gone to that a police officer basically scared off before he went to the former speaker's home and allegedly shot her and her husband.

So there were a total of four legislators and their families that were targeted in this one night.

And now also the last hour we've learned via Channel 3000 here in Madison that Democratic US Senator Tammy Baldwin, Wisconsin was on the hit list

of this manifesto in addition to other Wisconsin legislators?

Your initial reaction, Senator?

Well, I'm obviously horrified by this political violence and any political violence.

And I think we all need to be mindful of the language that we use as elected officials.

And it's pretty hard not to draw a straight line between the rhetoric that some use in the anti-choice movement.

about those of us who are pro-choice and the violence that was carried out on Saturday.

As for those of us Wisconsin legislators, I really, really appreciate all of the care and the comfort and support that I and my colleagues have received over the past couple of days as we have been

living with this horrible threat and this nightmare, and obviously our thoughts go out to our colleagues in Minnesota.

I know the Democratic State Convention here in Wisconsin was happening this weekend in Wisconsin-Del's.

I knew you were there.

get to what happened, some of the things there politically in a bit.

But I had read that there was increase, because all this was breaking during the Democratic State Convention without compromising security details.

It's my understanding that there was increased security put in place during that convention.

That's correct.

And even before law enforcement had learned that there were Wisconsin legislators being targeted on this list.

even after we had learned, before we had learned that they had increased security already there.

You could talk about this as much or little as you want.

Were you aware of the people that were on this list?

I am aware of who's on the list, but law enforcement has really emphasized to us that they do not want those names to be public because of the risk of additional violence or copycats.

And I think, you know, the point is really that anyone who serves the public could potentially be at risk like this.

And it's not acceptable.

Nobody deserves to put their life at risk because of the job that they have.

I think in, and we're talking today, Sarah Keldoroyce here, Democrat of Wisconsin.

As a longtime legislative staffer who worked in the building, as it's called, the Capitol here in Madison, and knowing people who still work there, I go back to Act 10 during 2011.

100,000 people protested peacefully in the state Capitol.

Yeah, there was a lot of yelling, and it got a little scary at times.

I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, for my...

Vanity's point, that's true.

But my former boss was also on, was known as Skirb, which oversees the capital grounds.

And I can tell you there was almost no actual physical damage to the capital from that.

Also, my boss was the only Republican who voted against Act 10, but he didn't reveal that till the very end.

There were people picketing on his sidewalk in Richland Center

And his reaction was going over the winter.

And his reaction was to go get a snowmelt and put it on because he was afraid somebody was going to slip and hurt themselves.

Right.

Make

sure that insurance policy was up to date.

But my point is Wisconsin has a history of demonstration, of political activism.

but not political violence.

Absolutely.

And that is as it should be.

I mean, there is nothing fundamentally more American than free speech and the ability to go make your voice heard.

And we get to have policy disagreements with each other.

But we do not get to hurt each other or settle those disputes with a gun.

And I think that that is really the difference here.

And I, you know, I have always been concerned about the safety and security of public officials and condemn

all violence, no matter where it comes from.

But I think clearly in these times, what we can see is that there are some violent extremists on the far right, and particularly in the anti-abortion movement.

And it is very, very dangerous, not just to Democrats and those of us who support abortion rights, but also to any Republican who may step out of line, I think Senator Lisa Murkowski has spoken about this.

Yeah.

Let's talk a little bit.

I might get accused of politicizing them, but I don't care because my point is simply to get to the truth here and get to things that matter.

And used to the Joint Finance Committee last week, correct me if I'm wrong, the Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee voted down a motion that would have allocated dollars to provide protection to all Wisconsin Supreme Court justices, not just the liberal ones.

all of them, and that was voted down.

It seems eerily pertinent today.

That's right.

Several years ago, we had a retired judge in Wisconsin who was executed in his home by someone who he had put behind bars.

And so for years, the Supreme Court has advocated for having a martial service.

They are right on the front lines, and there are people who are aggrieved by their decisions.

And I said, we need to fund this.

It is not acceptable for people to have to put their lives on the line or risk their family safety in order to serve the public.

I just don't get it because my former party likes to use the phrase, back the blue, justices are part of the law and uphold the law.

Back the

black.

Back the black robes.

Right.

And I just don't.

In the scheme of things, I don't know if you recall off the top of your head, but my guess is, in the scheme of the state budget, this appropriation would have been a

small amount.

Oh, it's a tiny amount

of money.

I

mean, I don't know, maybe a million or two

million

or something.

I mean, just a very, very small amount of money considering how devastating it would be for our state if we had a Supreme Court justice who was assassinated.

I know this is all fresh.

And again, talk about it as little or as much as you want.

What's the temperature of your colleagues right now in the legislature?

I'm assuming you've probably talked to some of them.

Just what's the feeling right now?

Well, I mean, obviously people are devastated and sad about the violence that has occurred against our colleagues.

And also, you know, for myself and I think for others, we feel a sense of resolve and purpose.

We know that

Part of the goal here of this kind of domestic terrorism and violence is to try to silence us or intimidated.

And I'm not going to be silenced.

I'm not going to be intimidated.

I'm going to continue speaking out and doing my job, which is to try to build a better Wisconsin to make sure that the kids growing up today have the same kind of opportunities and better opportunities than the ones that I was so lucky to have growing up here.

And, you know, I'm at the Capitol today.

And I really appreciate the Capitol Police there and the increased law enforcement presence.

I appreciate hearing from talking with my colleagues about what are some measures that we can take in terms of policy and practice to help all of us be more safe.

But, you know, to me, I think we just feel like we are ready to get to work and we are going to carry on in our mission.

Let's talk a little bit about that mission joint finance committee.

We're talking to Keldor Roy State Senator Keldor Royce who is a senator from the 26th district here in Madison member of the joint finance committee budget writing committee with the right smack in the debt middle might right smack dab in the middle of the writing process What is coming up this week senator?

I understand that there may be a vote on the UW system.

Yes, we are hearing some really nasty rumors about Republicans

plotting to make a multi-million dollar cut to the University of Wisconsin.

And keep in mind the broader context here of diminishing state support for the universities of Wisconsin over the last 40 years, gone from about not quite half of their budget to, you know, between 11 and 15% of the overall budget and the university, you know, having hundreds of millions of dollars cut under the Walker era.

So,

Coming in, this is really a make or break budget for UW.

They asked for $864 million, which would functionally put them back where they would have been had they kept pace with inflation and not had those cuts under the Walker years.

And instead, if they're not going to get that, and they're not even going to get an inflationary increase but a cut, that has to be vetoed.

Just period.

We cannot have a budget that forces further cuts on the university.

So correct me if I'm wrong, are you advocating then if this proposal you're hearing by your Republican colleagues would pass?

Is this beyond a light item?

Is this a high enough bar for the governor to veto the entire budget?

Well, you know, I don't know.

Obviously, the governor is going to make that decision.

But I think he's been very clear about what a priority it is for our state to have publicly funded higher ed.

In the recent years, we have had six campus closures.

And that is unacceptable.

I mean, the young people in this state

deserve every opportunity to go into higher ed if that is what they choose if that is how they see their life you know unfolding and for them to be have those opportunities snatched away is not acceptable

90 seconds left i totally agree that republicans have underfunded university wisconsin or whatever they call it now but i'll call it uw system uh but my frustration has been with with govern evers and is somewhat not specifically you but some of your democratic colleagues is

Why hasn't there been more of a push to get to the root cause?

Why hasn't someone said, let's have the legislative audit bureau audit the University of Wisconsin system and see where there really are places for true cuts and get to the heart of, is this a funding problem or what is this?

I just don't see a bipartisan commitment beyond you and a couple of other colleagues to get to the answer.

Yeah, I mean, I think.

when you look at the budget of the UW, certainly over the last 15 years, but over the last 40, you can see a pretty clear story.

They have really, really stepped up their fundraising game, corporate sponsorships, right?

They have done an incredible job and also raising tuition, right?

And attracting out-of-state students who pay full freight and help subsidize in-state students, right?

They have done their part.

And it is time for state legislators to do their part.

and fund the university at a level that makes it possible for every single Wisconsin kid who's willing to do the work to go there if they wish.

Would you be a supportive legislative audit bureau to audit UW System?

Well, yeah, I'm certainly open to that.

But, you know, I think the reality is like they have internal and external auditors.

They pinch every penny at the university because they are in such a constrained funding environment because of the legislature, right?

I mean, this is a different conversation than 20 years ago.

right, or

40 years ago.

I mean, you might have a disagreement, but I just don't think some of the salaries that some of these administration people, you know, I think Jay Roth was grossly overpaid, but that's just my personal take on it.

Well, I mean,

you know, the president of the system, by the way.

But, you know, look at the athletic department, right?

I mean, that, right.

But I think if you, the reality is that it actually costs a lot.

to do education.

It takes people and it takes smart people and you gotta pay them.

All right.

Senator Royce, one of those smart people, always fun to have here along with us.

We're taking a quick break.

When we come back, the Democratic State Convention, our own Dan Schaefer, re-combobulated on the governor.

We'll get the senator's take on that and what it means for Wisconsin Democrats moving forward.

Don't go anywhere.

It's the All Balls Show on the Civic Media.

Ready to watch.

and having fun doing it.

Some days more than others on the Civic Media Network.

Glad to have you all along.

It's eight minutes before the hour at three o'clock coming up at hour two.

Tom Kircher from Wisconsin Watch will be here talking about news across the state of Wisconsin.

And we're going to talk about pollinators.

We had this big pollinator month here.

It's time of year.

We're talking to how we can help our pollinators We'll talk to folks at the bottom of next hour right now.

We have state senator Kelder Royce from Wisconsin's 26 district here in studio member of the joint finance committee Senator glad to have you here as always.

Let's change gears a little bit talking to politics

Democrats had their state convention, as we mentioned earlier, at Wisconsin Delves.

My colleague, Dan Schaefer, founder of the Reconpopulation Area, our political editor here at Civic Media, made a little news as they say about Op-Ed, saying that he thought it was time for the governor to pass the torch.

That's to put it nicely.

To be blunt, he just said the governor should run for another term, basically making the argument that he's done a great job, but we don't wanna repeat of Joe Biden.

Senator, you're a Democrat, a prominent one, what's your

take?

Well, I mean, I think that the governor has been clear that he's gonna make a decision about that after the budget process, and I support him in that timeline, and in that decision, I think he and the First Lady are gonna take this seriously, and they're gonna

you know, come to a decision that works for them.

But is there a discussion amongst Democrats and you can name, name or not, however you want to do it, but is there some recognition that, oh my God, we don't want the same thing in Wisconsin to happen, what happened to Joe Biden nationally?

Well, obviously the wound of the 2024 election is very fresh for all of us.

And I think, you know, I think it's proper for us to be having a reckoning about, you know,

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and she has been an icon of mine since I was little, and what does it mean for the country when she kept that seat on the Supreme Court, and then it ended up being a Trump appointee.

And we should be talking about what happened with President Biden.

And obviously, I wasn't in the inner circle, but it is infuriating to think that the people who were around him did not recognize or

did not admit that he really shouldn't be in any position to run for reelection.

And so I think it's, you know, absolutely fine for anyone to have any kind of conversation that they want.

And I understand why, why Democrats are, you know, are thinking about this, right?

And I'm sure it weighs heavily on all of us.

And to be clear, our colleague, Dan Schaeffer, did not insinuate that Governor Evers has the same sort of issues that President Biden seemingly had.

But I think his point was, why not?

Chansa, he made the point that he's done a great job.

But look at Herb Coles, former US senator, was in his prime and then reached a certain age and said, you know what?

I'm going to pass the torch.

And a lot of people were all shaky about that.

But look, you had Tammy Baldwin win that election.

Well, that's right.

And I mean, I do think that there is

of a real long-standing critique of the Democratic Party that we have this kind of gerontocracy, right,

in

Congress.

And if you look at, you know, over time, over my lifetime, the Democrats are the older ones and the Republicans are always refreshing their ranks with younger folks.

And, you know, we do have a great bench nationally and in Wisconsin of folks

who are ready to run for offices.

And I mean everything from local office to

state

to federal.

And we should be cultivating that and celebrating that.

Well, the main thing is I love about you coming on this show as you're never afraid to have honest conversations.

Senator Kelder Royce, you ran in the Democratic primary last time for governor.

There was one.

Should Governor Evers decide not to run, will you run?

Well, I am really focused, Todd, at this moment.

And, you know, really throughout my career, I ran for the Senate because I wanted to build a legislative majority again.

I knew Wisconsin could be blue again, and that's going to be my focus.

We are going to have a Democratic trifecta in 2026, and I'm going to devote myself, as I have in the last several election cycles, to making that reality come true.

If Goddard Evers decides to run, would you consider primarying him?

Absolutely not.

Do you think any Democrat should?

I mean, I'm not going to be on that train.

That's for sure.

I'm on the train

of having a Democratic trifecta and having a Democratic Senate in particular, because that's the body in which I serve.

And that's where we can do it.

Only about a minute and a half left always goes too fast.

Nationally, one of the main people, the teachers union resigned from the DNC this morning saying that she didn't want to be part of Ken Martin's agenda.

You already had David Hogg leave last year and basically say he's going to take his $20 million in primary incumbent Democrats.

Matt Flynn, former Wisconsin Democratic chair, was on this show last week and said, Ken Martin should step aside and put Ben Wickler in there.

It just seems that national Democrats can't get their crap together.

Well, you know, I just, I don't pay a ton of attention to stuff like that.

I mean, I think of like, what is in my control, right?

Here I am, a state center in Wisconsin, what's in my control?

I went and did call time this morning,

right?

I got myself out of bed, I went, I tried to raise money for my fellow legislators.

I'm gonna finish up with the budget papers I haven't read tomorrow, and I'm gonna do my darnedest to make the case that we need to fund and invest in our higher education system.

I'm recruiting candidates and helping encourage people run for office.

I'm helping my colleagues feel confident and safe after the attacks.

I'm doing what I can.

And I think, you know, I encourage everyone else to do that too.

Wisconsin Democrat selected Devin Remaker as the new party chair after Ben Wickler said he wasn't going to endorse, that he did endorse, and Joseph Peckie lost out on that.

Were you, did you have a dog in the race?

I

mean, I

back, I back them all, right?

I'm on team Dem.

Come

on!

I back them

all.

Yeah, I, you know,

I

would have been happy with any of them winning.

And honestly, you know, our job, our work is the same.

Our work is the same regardless of who is the chair of the party.

I wish Devin really well.

You know, I thank William and Joe for running great campaigns.

I think, you know, our party is in a strong position in 2026, right?

We are, the backlash to Trump is huge and we can see that in the protest march versus his pathetic, you know, military half parade.

And I want to harness that energy and not fight with

other Democrats, independents, or fair-minded Republicans.

I want to bring them in.

I want to power electoral victories.

That's my goal, and that's what I'm focused on.

Former great majority leader and state senator Tim Cullen, great Democrat, once told me, Todd, any type of politician says anything other than, yes, it's a no, and every time they say anything other than a no, it's a yes.

You did not say you would not run for governor if Governor Evers does not run.

Oh, Todd.

All right, we'll leave it there.

There's an end until next Monday.

Always appreciate you, Senator Calderoy.

Great to be with you.

As always.

I get the poke out of the table.

No, not

true, but look at my hands.

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.

I'm Cross Wisconsin on the Civic Media Radio Network and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm Todd Albaul, along with our outstanding producer, engineer, Mr. Aaron Zommers on the board.

It is six minutes past the hour of three o'clock.

Welcome into hour number two of the broadcast here on a Monday, June 16th, 2025.

It is a great day to be Wisconsinite.

Sun trying to pop out here at the Royal World headquarters in downtown Madison on State Street.

Gonna be Saltree.

Muggy this week.

Look for some rain.

Tuesday into Wednesday, some storms might be strong.

We'll keep you up to date on that.

And then maybe 90 by the weekend.

Glad to have you along.

Many thanks to State Senator Kelder Royce for being here in hour number one.

One of the many things I appreciate about her is the fact you can ask her.

And she's not one of these people that says, well, you know, you gotta, you know, only ask.

No, no, no.

She's like anything you want.

No, no preconditions.

And I love that.

And I appreciated her, her honest answers to some difficult questions.

Absolutely.

That is also something I very much appreciate about her.

And I'm glad to have in my representative since I live here in Madison.

There you go.

There you go.

Also, we forgot to mention this hour number one, because we had the big, the big text to win trivia contest extraordinaire.

And many people, including mom.

Well, do people win these things?

Yes.

Yes, as a matter of fact.

And on Friday, we had the big thing on the Bob Uker tribute game in August.

So we gave away, and it wasn't, I always forget.

It's not just the news talk side.

You have the music stations across Wisconsin as a part of civic media.

So I wanted to let you know that Dawn,

Don up in beautiful Park Falls who is listening WCQM our music station up there in Park Falls Don was the winner on Friday of those Bob Euker tickets to the tribute of life Game ceremony back in coming up in August so congratulations Don.

Thanks for listening to civic media and also we had a couple of grand prize winners

as well for those two big trips.

And we're gonna be notifying them soon as soon as we have their names, we'll release that as well.

So thanks to everybody who played our text to win Scotty Summer Trivia contest.

Another one is coming up by here in September.

So be listening to that.

But in the meantime, coming up this Friday, we're gonna be going back to our free Friday ticket brewery giveaway.

So stay tuned on Friday.

We'll give you another opportunity to win Brewer's tickets across the Civic Media radio network.

Our next guest here at nine minutes past the hour of three o'clock.

You don't need to win a trivia contest to see his great work.

All you need to do is log on to Wisconsin Watch where you can find Tom Kertcher and all the great reporters there at Wisconsin Watch.

He joins us via StreamYard.

Tom, thanks so very much for being with us.

Tom, you're welcome.

I don't know if you're allowed.

I love bragging on a Monday, but of course, a quick, a quick break.

I spent most of my new career.

I've been reporting on politics, state government, that sort of thing.

But for 17 years until recently, I also did some freelance reporting covering sports for the Associated Press, including Milwaukee Brewer's games.

And one claim to fame is that I once made Bob Uker laugh.

Really?

Now

that must be hard

to

do, baby.

No, you think?

I mean, he's a super, super funny guy.

You see professional comedians talk about how much they admire him, his humor.

So yeah, I had a moment of pride when we were in the media elevator and he made a comment and I made a retort and he laughed and I thought, wow, this.

I'll never happen to me again.

That's I know this is something we can share on the air.

It is not.

It is not.

It is not something.

Which is probably if you if you talk to people that actually hung around Uker off the air, many of the things that made Uker laugh are not things we can necessarily share on the air.

Well, to be.

Yeah.

He had a he had a great sense of humor.

I thought, well, absolutely.

He's super funny.

Great timing.

And I could tell when I made the comment that he chuckled that he seemed to catch himself for a moment like, wait a minute, I'm the funny guy.

You're not supposed to make me laugh.

Well, that's a great claim to fame.

You're a Renaissance man, Tom Kirchner.

Not only can you do great

reporting, serious

reporting, you can also make the late great Bob Uker laugh and tell a great joke as well.

That's fantastic.

Well, Tom, you were up in Wisconsin Dells this weekend.

And at the Democratic State Convention there in the Dells wrote a great piece on it entitled Wisconsin Democrats search for answers as fear of autocracy galvanizes the grass roots.

So give us the lay of the land.

We had state state senator Kelder Royce Democrat here last hour last half hour.

Give us first of all just the serious side of this because this terrible tragedy.

This assassination of a city legislator and the attempted assassination of another and his wife happened over the weekend in next door, Minnesota.

It was reported that because of this, and because there were Wisconsin legislators on the manifesto of this assassin, that security was upgraded at the Democratic Convention, the Dells.

Did you notice that?

Was that felt?

What was the feel of the land up there?

Yeah, just a moment before I get into that, just to set the stage a little bit.

I covered the Republican State Convention last month in the Wausau area and took the approach of trying to interview rank and file party members about what was on their mind as opposed to interviewing the elected folks.

I took the same approach at the Democratic Convention.

You're right, there was a little bit of a surreal feel in the sense that

Here we are at a resort in Lake Dalton, you know, a few miles from the water park capital of the world, right?

You know, just fun and frolic.

And when I arrived about three o'clock Saturday, you know, the first thing I noticed was outside of the convention center next to the resort area.

There were several police officers in the front door and a car nearby.

And then inside, periodically throughout the afternoon and evening, I would see an officer walk through and that was, you know, clearly an indication of what had happened in Minnesota.

Yeah, sobering time is for sure again.

You're a reporter, Tom, and out of all this tragedy,

One of the things that I really admired was the local reporting, particularly Minnesota Star Tribune and some of the WCCO staff.

And I think just another example, why we need great independent or like Wisconsin Watchers, great local reporters, when times are tough, when tragedies strike, there's really no better way than for people who are on these beats who can get to the facts right away.

Yeah, absolutely.

And the more the better, right?

The more reporters you have to cover the field, so to speak.

The more that have experience with the local scene makes a huge difference.

And I think particularly in an event like that where the facts roll out in a messy way.

It takes time to sort out what exactly happened.

Was someone killed?

Was someone injured?

Was it a gun?

Where did it happen?

Who was this person?

you know, having reporters on the ground who have experience and can get as quickly as possible to the salient facts, you know, just crucial.

All right, let's get to the more politically interesting thing of the convention.

And I'm talking about the Democrats elected a new chair, of course, Ben Wickler, a longtime chair, announced he would not run again, said he wasn't going to endorse anybody.

And then two or three weeks ago, he said, actually, no, check that.

I'm actually going to endorse my number two guy, or number one, my vice chair, Devin Remacher, Joseph Pecky.

long-time communication strategist for Democrats had already kind of announced and gotten a lot of endorsements.

And then you had this guy, I believe it was Liza MacGarcia from the third congressional district, which was confusing to me because third district Democrats have not done particularly well, but that guy threw his head into the ring and then all the chaos and fun ensued.

Yeah, it's certainly Ben Wickler was kind of...

several warm receptions, several standing ovations.

He spoke at different points on Saturday and, you know, a lot of adulation for him.

So you have to imagine that his endorsement of Devin Rembacher, who used to be the executive director of the state party, had to carry a lot with a lot of weight with the delegates who are the ones who voted and chose the current chair.

So, uh, Devin Remerker comes through and it helped me understand this, uh, Tom, because, you know, I'm a former Republican.

Uh, maybe I'll be, I'll be, I guess Democrats do things different in a lot of regards, but.

I don't understand why they do this whole ranked choice voting.

I like ranked choice voting when it comes like electing people to elective office.

But to me, it was Democrats trying too hard.

Oh, let's make less than an example.

Ranked choice voting to elected chair, you know, it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Was this confusing to you or attendees or I don't know.

You know, it's something I get into very much.

I know that they approve that change, I believe.

and this is the first time that there has been a challenge or chair.

So it's the first time they've used that.

I think it would be interesting to see what people felt about it, whether they would want to keep it going forward.

But I have to say that the focus of my work on the weekend was speaking to the rank and file delegates.

And I don't get the sense that was high.

on their priority list, the chair election, or who won.

They had other thoughts.

Really?

So I was going to say the right choice was a higher priority.

I get that, because I'm a political nerd and a goofball.

But so you're telling me that who became chair wasn't as big a deal as other issues?

Well, you know, what I did is I would just buttonhole delegates and other guests.

Not everyone there was an official delegate.

There were guests as well.

And started off with simple questions.

Why are you here?

And what do you want to see the party do?

And I was struck by, you know, clearly this has been a scientific sample, but, you know, in interviewing eight or 10 of them, three of them, middle-aged people said they were attending.

their state convention for the first time.

One

of them even said this is

the

first time I've ever been politically active at all.

And all three of them said that the reason that they took that step to come to the convention was their fear of President Trump threatening democracy.

And that was echoed by another more veteran delegate from the Stevens Point area who's been to

A lot of conventions, unlike those first three people, and he had the same take that his primary purpose of wanting to come was to see what could be done to counter some of what's happening in Washington.

But a minute and a half left, again, from the outsider, but as someone who ran internal party elections and worked elected on the Republican side, to me, Joseph Pecky, who's been on the show,

is a great communicator and can do narrative well.

I don't know Remaker, I've never talked to the guy.

He does not seem to be the communicator that Joseph Pecky is, but clearly the delegates voting wanted him there.

It seems odd to me, Tom, and this has been one of my frustrations with Democrats, is there more concerned about the policy or very concerned about Donald Trump?

Aren't we all, or at least a lot of us are, including myself.

But in order to defeat that, you have to have someone who has a good message

And it just seems weird to me that they weren't they didn't they weren't that concerned about who became chair.

Like, well, it doesn't really matter.

I think it does.

Yeah, I don't want to get the wrong question.

I wouldn't say that the people I spoke to, the people I interviewed say it didn't matter.

It was just that they were there for a different reason.

They were telling me, hey, we're very concerned about the state of democracy in the country, a shift toward our accuracy.

As some of them put it, and we want to get together and talk about.

How do we resist that?

Certainly part of that is who's going to run the state party.

But I think what was driving people to come to the convention, the ones I spoke to, was more of the bigger picture.

Come back to talk more with Tom Kertcher from Wisconsin Watch after this and answer the age old question.

Boxers or briefs?

No, no, no.

It's fact briefs.

That's what it is.

Fact briefs with Tom on the other side.

Don't go anywhere.

It's the Todd Hall Falls Show on the Civic Media radio network.

you

Welcome back to Tom Allwell's show on the Pacific Media Ready Network.

Coming up after the bottom of the hour update.

Going to talk about pollinator month.

pollinator month.

That should be interesting.

Looking forward to that for right now.

Our guest from Wisconsin Watch is the great Tom Kircher, who is at the Democratic State Convention over the weekend.

Tom had a couple of callers called in here.

Says Trisha in Appleton called in.

She was at the convention and when she asked why they were using ranked choice voting, they told her it was a mandate from the DNC and that they were required to use it.

That's that's I did not know that I'm not sure that's one person

anyway

Yeah, all right, that's that's interesting call there from from that individual any other before I get into the the fact briefs anything else from the the convention you want to wrap up on

I think just one thought was that while there was agreement among the people I interviewed that They're worried about the

future of democracy was strong that there wasn't a clear agreement on what to do.

One of the people I interviewed said he wanted to see more the resistance like the senator from California who was arrested last week interrupting a news conference from Trump's Homeland Security Director.

He felt like that sort of action needs to happen more, but I'm not sure there's a consensus on that.

Interesting.

All right, Tom, I love this part of the segment.

The fact briefs, tell us what this is and give us a couple of please.

Yeah, so Wisconsin Watch has a feature called fact briefs.

We look at a claim that's made by a politician.

We structure it in the form of a question that we answer yes or no, and they're done in 150 words.

Love this.

Yeah, the most recent one I did asked whether the typical public housing tenant in the United States stays in public housing for 12 years.

Is that true or false?

All right.

That statement was, yeah.

So Congressman Glenn Grokman from the Eastern Wisconsin said that the average stay in a public housing project is 12 years.

So this is one of the cases where he's correct.

If you look at an average, it actually is 12 years, but misleading in the sense that that's not, that doesn't represent the typical resident.

The average considers people who stay very, very long, like the disabled and the elderly, they may stay many, many years.

That's going to raise the average, of course.

The median, if you think about the more typical, it's four years.

People who live in public housing projects.

half of them stayed for about four years, half of them stayed for less.

This is fantastic reporting.

Every reason I chuckle what he mentioned, Congressman Grossman's name, is because I know Glenn from my years working in the state Senate when he was a state senator.

He's an intriguing, eclectic guy.

But yes, Congressman Grossman is wanting to kind of select certain things.

And I think this is just unfortunate his statement.

I'm so glad you've corrected this that because

You look at the disabled or people who might not have the ability to get out of public housing versus, as you said, the median, where people, if you give them some help, they move on and get out of it in, what do you say, a median age of four years?

Yeah, again, what he said was accurate.

It's just maybe needing a little more context so they don't get the wrong impression that the typical

Public housing tenant is staying 12 years one.

In fact, it's the typical tenant is quite a bit less.

Although some people would say four years are not full on 10 too.

Right.

Tom Kircher, next fact brief, please.

So another one we looked at is the has to do with the big, beautiful bill as the president called it.

That's being debated still in Congress.

And there were.

A couple claims from our Wisconsin lawmakers, Gwen Moore, the Congresswoman from Milwaukee, and the Democratic said Ron Johnson, the Republican Senator, both talked about how that bill is projected to add at least $2 trillion to the federal debt.

And that's true.

We looked at the nonpartisan

analysis from a number of different organizations.

They all came up in the range of two to three trillion dollars in debt over 10 years.

If that big, beautiful bill becomes law.

Very interesting.

And so there's a and it's a fascinating Gwen Moore and Ron Johnson very two diametrically different

people on the

political spectrum and for completely different reasons wanted to point this out, I would say.

Yeah, and I think we just wanted to weigh in this because there was a number of statements made that people who are supporting that bill believe it will generate economic growth that, in fact, there won't be additions to the debt.

But that's an argument to be made, but that's not shown in the nonpartisan analyses that we looked at.

Always great to talk with you, Tom.

Do you want to tease anything forward stories that

you're working

on, either you or the great folks at Wisconsin Watch?

Yeah, thanks for asking.

So as we as we did with the Republican State Convention, we did produce several fact checks, fact briefs out of that.

And that's our plan for the Democratic Convention as well.

The one I've started to work on, I don't know the answer to is, is there a rural county in Wisconsin where more than half of the residents receive SNAP?

Is there a county in Wisconsin where more than half the residents

We receive food stamps.

That's very interesting.

I would think we're talking about total population.

So with the percentage and I would just add that we're asking whether there's a rural county.

A person might think that it's an urban county would be more likely.

But we're taking a look at whether there's actually a rural county in Wisconsin or more than half of the residents.

Can we say who made the claim yet?

Yeah, that was actually from the keynote speaker at the Democratic Convention, Rafael Warnock, the US Senator from Georgia.

And so it was interesting to me whether it's accurate or not.

So we're going to take a look.

Did he name the county or he just said there was a county in Wisconsin?

He did name the county.

Really?

Can we say who it is?

Sure.

He said it was Menominee County.

Wow.

He's accurate about that.

That is I can't now see that's a tease.

Ladies and gentlemen, we'll find out from Tom Kirchner

next week.

Very good.

And look at Wisconsin.

Watch.

Thank you very much.

Tom always appreciate you.

Come on back.

Welcome

to talk about pollinator month on the other side.

Stay tuned for news, whether it's sports.

It's civic media is ready to work.

back to the title of the show across the state of Wisconsin.

The Civic media are ready to work.

35 minutes now past the hour of three o'clock on this Monday, June 16th.

Glad to have you along.

Zomers on the board.

Joining us here live in studio.

Always love when that happened.

We have Amy Berrio, who is the communications director of Clean Wisconsin to talk to us a little bit about pollinator month.

Amy, first of all, thanks for stopping by.

How are you?

I'm fine.

How are you doing?

All things considered, doing well.

It's almost summer, I was going to say, springtime.

As a guy who is affected by allergies, I'm not a fan of pollen.

It's very, very important to the ecology and environment around here.

We're going to get into that in a minute.

But first of all, tell us maybe a little bit about yourself.

Well, I'm a communications director, as you mentioned, for Clean Wisconsin.

I'm originally from Louisiana, hence the very long Cajun last name that I have.

And I bring that kind of perspective up here when I communicate about the natural issues of our state, our clean water, clean air.

healthy landscapes.

Louisiana's a big outdoor state, and so is Wisconsin, so they have that in common.

And I just have to make it through the winters, and then this time of year, this humidity outside, I'm totally fine with.

You feel fine at home.

Yeah.

How long have you been up in Wisconsin?

I've been here for...

I think 14 years.

I should be acclimated.

Now it's very intriguing to me because Jacqueline, our human resource director here at Civic Media, she's also a native Louisiana.

Okay, now we have to meet.

We have to figure out where she's from.

We'll introduce you, but neither one of you have that, what I would call a traditional Louisiana accent.

Is that something that you lose when you come north?

She says when she goes back down home, it comes out.

It comes out,

yeah.

Like I'm fixing to go home in a couple of days, and it's already kind of starting to, I'm ready, ready to slide back into that Louisiana, eat some crawfish and some crabs that my dad has, you know, he's picking up tomorrow, so.

Yeah,

it comes

out.

It comes out.

But when you're up here, you know, you kind of like rain it in

a little bit.

LSU fan?

Oh, I went to LSU.

Did you really feel that?

I did.

Very good.

We, Jacqueline's a big, as I am a college football fan, so she loves her Tigers.

Well, I'm going to have to meet this Jacqueline.

Maybe I know her.

I don't know.

You might.

As they say, that's not why you're called.

But it's fascinating nonetheless.

So tell us a little bit about for folks that don't know what clean Wisconsin is.

What is the organization and what is their primary focus?

So Clean Wisconsin is the oldest environmental group in Wisconsin.

We've been working since 1970 to protect Wisconsin's clean air, safe water, our land and our climate.

So that's a lot of things.

That's our environment.

It's all those things that we rely on to be safe and healthy and happy in Wisconsin.

Back then, we were called Wisconsin's Environmental Decade because I think the thought was,

In this decade of 1970s, we're going to figure out all of our environmental problems.

But that didn't turn out that way.

So we made the name change, I think maybe 15 years ago, or a little longer to clean Wisconsin.

But the way we work on environmental issues is to kind of attack it from all sides.

So we do policy work.

We take legal action against polluters.

And then we also do a lot of advocacy, generally public advocacy, like what I'm doing right now.

We've had Tia Nelson, the daughter of former Wisconsin governor and U.S.

Senator Gaylord Nelson, who was the founder of Earth Day.

And of course here in Dane County, just across the lake here, we have Governor Nelson State Park.

And Tia Nelson is very proud of the fact that her father worked in a bipartisan manner to create Earth Day.

And she has continued that tradition.

And I just think again, these issues of the environment of conservation of the outdoors, they really shouldn't be.

a partisan issue because we all enjoy, as it turns out, clean air, clean water, et cetera.

And if you look at, I think one of our kind of biggest victories that we've worked on in the 1990s was protecting the lower Wisconsin River, right?

Yes.

This place where we all, many of us have canoeed down it, not just the Wisconsin River, but like hundreds of acres around the Wisconsin River.

And that was an enormous bipartisan effort to enact.

legislation to protect the Lower Wisconsin River.

And now it's the longest wild or natural riverway in the Midwest.

And so it's something that we can all be proud of and we can all use.

And you're right, it's not about what side of the aisle you're on.

It's about appreciating what we

have.

I mean, we didn't plan this, but I appreciate you bringing up the Lower Wisconsin Riverway.

I was just on it yesterday.

I was kayaking with my younger godson and his parents.

And I told him the story and the quick version my former boss, Dale Schultz, was of, considered a conservative Republican at the time.

Spencer Black was considered a liberal Democrat.

And they worked together to help co-author that legislation.

Republican Governor Tommy Thompson signed it into law.

And now this year, celebrating 35 years of authority in Wisconsin Riverway, so that my godson and his family and I could kayak down it yesterday.

And it looks...

pretty close to what it was 100 years ago.

Yeah, and it's remarkable.

And that kind of progress doesn't happen on one side of the aisle or the other.

It has to be everybody coming together.

Yeah, correct.

So tell us a little bit about what a pollinator month is and why we should be concerned with it.

Well, pollinator month is just a moment to pause and to talk about what's going on with our pollinators and how to protect them.

So,

probably when you and I were kids, we didn't think much about pollinators like there were bees around and you ran away from them or whatever.

But around the late 90s, early 2000s, we started to see a huge decline in pollinator populations in some areas of 90% decline.

And that is concerning when you think about one out of every three bites of food we take in the US is because of pollinators.

They made it happen.

Our cranberries, our apples, our fruits and vegetables, all kinds of things are nuts.

And beyond just the human sort of self-centered look at pollinators, they are part of an important ecosystem.

And they are telling us there's something wrong.

And so we need to think about why they're disappearing and what we can do to make that situation better.

And that's what the month is about.

We're speaking with Amy Berrio, who is the Communication Director of Clean Wisconsin here on Pollinator Month.

I think you bring it with that point.

Oftentimes, like, well, it's just bees.

Or it's just honey.

And it's so much more than that.

When you said it goes to our fruits and vegetables that if we don't care about our pollinators, a lot of things we enjoy can be gone.

So talk to us.

Talk to us, I guess, a little bit about what's the biggest endangerment right now?

Is it the chemicals?

What is it?

Well, it's a combination, like everything.

It's always a combination of things.

But the big thing is habitat loss.

So you have in Wisconsin, you know, a lot of conventional agriculture, corn and soybeans kind of moving in on.

habitat for pollinators, getting rid of some of those native pollinator flower species.

And you have climate change, which is, of course, on small living creatures, they experience those changes a lot harder.

And then you have the pesticides.

So the rapid decline in pollinator...

pollinator numbers coincides with the rapid increase in a type of pesticide called neonicotinoids.

It's a class of pesticides that are neurotoxins, and so they attack the nervous systems of insects.

And as those pesticides kind of rolled out starting in the late 90s to the early 2000s, within 10 years you started to see, you know, hive collapse.

You started to see bees that were

didn't know where they were supposed to be going, you know, it couldn't communicate well.

And in fact, there's been research here at UW Madison showing that really, really low doses of these kinds of chemicals can mess up a bee's ability to find its food, to be social in the nest, you know, all these kinds of things.

So it's a lot of factors.

This certain type of pesticide is one of those factors, but certainly...

every time you take away a flowering plant that they feed on, that's another factor.

Is this pesticide one that's particular to a certain agricultural product?

Well, it is in the sense that, so let's say your conventional corn grower in Wisconsin, you cannot choose to buy a seed that is not coated with neonicotinoids.

So if you just, you're like, I don't want to use this, you can't, you can't find that supply.

So it is in that particular crop,

incredibly widespread.

And then when the crop has it, you know, every part of the plant contains the nicotineoid because it's been coated on the seeds.

But it's also like household plants and pet collars and things, you know, all kinds of household products that are supposed to be kind of insecticides, you'll find that in.

And it also is on plants like fruits, nuts, berries, things like that.

That's not a seed treatment, but sprayed on afterwards.

So it's...

heavily used, I would say, all across the country, but especially here in Wisconsin.

Are there any proposals or legislation that you're aware of to cut back or eliminate this pesticide?

Well, some states have introduced legislation that's specifically about neonictenoids.

I think New York is one of them.

I can't remember the other.

But here in Wisconsin, there's been a bill introduced relatively recently, a pollinator package.

And in that bill, it's really just a package of bills.

One of them is about the DNR and not using neonicotinoids or neonics for short on their kind of plantings that they may do.

So there's a lot of work going on.

Clean Wisconsin is part of a neonic working group where we're bringing in farmers and

experts from UW Madison and elsewhere and and all kinds of folks from dat cap all all kinds of people who are trying to solve this issue because It's it's about as we were talking about earlier.

You know, it's not just Environmental groups say don't use this.

It's we need everybody to kind of come together and be like, okay This pesticide number one has been bad for pollinators and number two It doesn't appear to be totally effective in terms of increasing crop yields.

So it may not be

great to use from a financial standpoint for farmers.

So how do we come together and address this problem?

So this Neo-NIC working group is just getting off the ground in Wisconsin to try to solve this issue.

Gia, are you aware of any research or science that shows these Neo-NIC, I guess we call them for short?

passing on to humans that may eat these foods or whatever.

I mean, you know, years ago, people laughed at former Democratic US Senator Russ Feingold when he was going after RGB, GH hormones and things in dairy.

And, you know, back in 2007, on a whim, I started drinking organic Valley milk that doesn't have that crap in it.

And by golly, it turns out, no, Todd isn't lactose intolerant.

If you just drink the organic milk, that solves a lot.

Yeah, a lot of the problem.

So I'm a big believer that a lot of these chemical.

or pesticides in our foods are having an effect on us as humans, do you find that, is there any research that shows it with this?

Yeah, well, in fact, we just posted a research brief on our website at Clean Wisconsin that talks about that.

So, you know, when you put something on food, you're gonna get some of it.

You're gonna ingest some of it.

Also, most of the neonicotinoid that is, you know, coating that seed, only about 10% of it actually in real life gets taken up by the plant, and the rest of it ends up in the soil and in...

drinking water.

So what we've got is we've got the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Protection studies how much of these pesticides are getting into water wells in Wisconsin.

And they're finding that, yep, some of it is showing up in water wells, particularly in the Central Sands region of the state where there's a lot of agriculture and there's like a pretty shallow aquifer system.

So there are more agrochemicals tend to show up in those drinking water wells.

And there haven't been a lot of human studies, because it was always like, well, we have this new pesticide, and it's great.

And it goes after bugs, and don't worry about it.

It was

kind of the thing.

So there haven't been a lot of human health studies, but they're starting to become evidence that fish are being impacted.

birds in areas where these pesticides have been used for being impacted.

And then on animal studies that are meant to kind of replicate what high-level exposure to humans would be, there's been some evidence of sort of a wide variety of health harm that could come from being

exposed to high levels of these chemicals.

We're up against the clock.

Can you come back after two minutes here?

We'll wrap up.

Yeah, sure.

All right, great.

Amy Berrio is with us.

She is the communication director of Clean Wisconsin.

Talk about perhaps what we can do as Wisconsinites to help all our pollinators.

Don't go anywhere.

We're listening to the Todd Hallball Show across Wisconsin on the Civic Media Ray Network.

Welcome back to the title of all show on the civic media.

We're glad to have you along where it's eight minutes before the hour of four o'clock at the top of the hour.

ABC or CBS News, depending upon which of our great stations you're listening to, weather update.

And that a great Tom Tom, geez, Mike Clemens.

Yes, I know my colleagues are great sports reporter, Mike.

Clevens will be in with a sports report following the Brewers.

Got a nice win.

On Father's Day, our Luke Mathers was there with his dad watching the Brewers beat the Cardinals, and the Brewers get ready for a very important series against the Cubs.

This week at Ampham Field, Clemens is all over that.

It will bring it to us.

And then Maggie Dawn, and the Maggie Dawn show from four until six.

Pete Schwabba and Nightlight, six until eight.

Native Roots Radio with Robert Pilot, and then it is Rick Smith across America.

There's a great lineup here at Civic Media.

Right now we're talking

Amy Berrio here at the desk, the communications director for Clean Wisconsin during pollinator month.

Amy, thanks for coming back for the second segment here.

Appreciate that.

Again, you sit over the break.

We don't want to make this all about the neonics, but I just find this fascinating that this one chemical has been so devastating to our pollinators.

Before we move on from that, is it, you know, I at least...

Think of pollinators as bees.

Are there other insects or species that pollinate beyond the honeybee?

Oh, sure.

And the honeybee is not a native pollinator, so it's from Africa.

We have about 400 species of native pollinators in Wisconsin, and that includes...

bumblebees.

It includes the rusty patched bumblebee, which was the first pollinator or the first insect ever listed as a federally endangered species.

So when we were kids, they were everywhere and now they're almost nowhere.

So they're all kinds of pollinators and butterflies and many other types of insects.

out there that we're trying to protect.

All right.

Let's go to move on to some of the solutions here.

Things that we, we're not all scientists.

We don't all belong to groups like Clean Wisconsin.

What can us as just Wisconsinites all across the state do in our own little world to help pollinators?

Well, if you have a house and you have a yard, set aside a spot of that yard for pollinator friendly habitat.

So that means you're not mowing, you're not disturbing, you have some

native Wisconsin flowers that pollinators like that you plant there.

And that is giving those bees and butterflies and other insects a home.

But one thing I didn't realize until I started working with Clean Wisconsin and talking to folks was that these bumble bees, their homes are usually

underground little tunnels.

And so they're under the leaves and they're there in the springtime and they just need that cover to make their nests and rebuild.

And when we start pulling all those leaves out and putting our mulch in and all that kind of thing, we disturb that natural process.

So keeping a part of your yard that's intentional is great.

And then when you go to buy plants, ask.

were these plants treated with pesticides?

Because the one heartbreaking thing I think about is, well, I bought these plants at the big box store, and I see these bees feeding on them.

And am I hurting the bees with these plants?

or not.

And so it's important to try to figure out and that's kind of a hard-ass in a big box store.

So if you can buy your plants locally at the farmer's market or other places that are selling native pollinator plants, that's the best way to go.

Yeah, and a great shout out to one of our great sponsors here at Civic Media, Kopkes Greenhouse down in the town of Dunne outside of Oregon.

It comes up the farmer's market here in Madison.

Other great local greenhouse and sells native pollinator.

species and plants there, so you're absolutely right.

Let's talk a little bit about your, I don't have a list here

of

things that, what we're trying to say, Todd, that we intake as humans, we talked about, you know, milk before, but age old, age old, but question is, should I spend the extra money to buy organic?

Does it matter in cases like this?

Yes, so if you're worried about, you know, nicotinoids being on your food, so again, I mentioned berries, nuts.

corn.

These are some of the foods that have been tested to show that on occasion they exceed the health limit for neonicotinoid substances on them by organic because they're not going to have those.

I mentioned that conventional corn seed is coated with neonics.

Organic corn seed is not.

So typically organic produce does not use this particular type of pesticides.

So if you're worried about pesticides and chemicals then that's a good way to go.

Still though we

We've got the goal of helping conventional farmers to use less of these harmful products as well.

About a minute and a half left.

Other things that we could do across Wisconsin besides setting a portion of our yard or garden aside?

Well, I think, you know, um, let me

ask.

Well, no, I guess I didn't ask it very well.

It's my fault.

A lot of people we treat our wands.

Because

we

don't like the dandelions we spray is that harming the pollinators to have beautiful lawns

Let me give you an example.

So I talked to my dad in Louisiana and he's saying man.

I cannot he likes to garden vegetable garden.

He's like I cannot get my

squash to grow where there are no bees to pollinate the squash.

And I thought about it.

I'm like, oh, you really spray your tomatoes a lot with insecticides.

And so when you use insecticides in your yard, especially these neonics, they stay, they stay in every part of the plant.

And then as the pollinators feed from plant to plant, you know, you're, you just have a

this sort of harm spreading around your garden.

So you need

to be careful.

If you do need to use some kind of insecticide or other pesticide to follow the package directions, don't think more is better.

We tend to think that.

It's not better.

It's not better.

Very quickly, where can folks find you at Clean Wisconsin website or socials?

Cleanwisconsin.org.

We're

also

on Instagram and LinkedIn and Facebook.

those sorts of places.

I encourage people to check it out.

I've learned something today.

Amy Berriel, Commons Director at Clean Wisconsin.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you.

Yeah, really a pleasure having it back soon.

It is pollinator months.

So all of us should do what we can to help out our pollinators across the great state of Wisconsin.

Many thanks to state Senator Kelder Royce for being here today, talking a little bit about the joint finance committee.

Tom Kircher from Wisconsin Watch and his great reporting.

And as we said, Amy Berrio here, the communications director at Clean Wisconsin on pollinator month.

Mr. Zalmers doing a great job on the board.

Stay tuned.

Maggie Dawn is next tomorrow.

Join us tomorrow.

about rural emergency medical services all across the state of Wisconsin, the little on fusion voting as well.

Thank you all for being here.

Todd, I'll say whatever you're fighting for, whatever you believe in, do not give up.

Keep banging your drum.

We'll see you tomorrow.