A Tale Of Two Budgets with Dan Shafer (Hour 1)

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.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm Todd Alba, along with our fantastic engineer and producer, Mr. Aaron Zommer is on the board.

It is six minutes past the hour of two o'clock on this Thursday, July 3rd, 2025.

It is a great day to be Wisconsinite.

Welcome in, everybody here at the World Headquarters of the old CM, Civic Media.

Nobody calls it CM.

Welcome.

I

sound

like Trump now and nobody calls it see him.

I just thought of a new thing call it civic

nobody calls it CM Pacific media

Shame mostly clear skies blue skies here in downtown Madison a block away from the state Capitol where the midnight oil was burning and then some last night State budget was passed by the assembly the wee hours of the morning

Apparently somebody made a lot of popcorn for Robin Voss and he said, I need to eat that.

So let's pass.

No, he didn't.

I'm just, I'm just, I'm joking around.

You understand?

I'm joking around.

Uh, our very own Dan Schaefer, host of, uh, not host, but our civic media political editor and founder of the reconbobulation area, as well as our news director, Shalie Pittman and Jimmy Cusco from our news department, all on top of it last night.

Here's what happened.

Summers.

I was, uh, I was watching Colbert.

a rerun and I fell asleep in my chair and I woke up and there were reruns of sign failed on and it was like, I don't know, 1245, one o'clock in the morning.

And

I'm like,

oh, I better check.

I just, as I woke up, here's Schaefer and Shalie Pittman and Jimmy Kuska, they'd stayed up the whole time.

And I think the governor signed, then they took that, they passed the budget.

and immediately walked it over to Governor Evers' office in the East Wing, and Governor Evers signed it, I believe, 132 a.m., 131 a.m.

Shaffer will have it, because he was up and doing it.

So we have a new state budget, a lot of people unhappy, some people happy, there are winners and losers in these things, politically, winners and losers in terms of Wisconsinites.

We're gonna break it all down with Dan Shaffer here at the bottom, just after the bottom of the hour, because he understands bombers.

this state budget process, it can be a bit discombobulating.

It can be extremely discombobulating.

So we'll recombobulate with Dan Schaefer at the bottom of the hour.

Also coming up today, a holiday edition in hour two of What's Worse, Sparklers or Fireworks.

Or Firecrackers.

Or

Firecrackers, thank you.

Sparklers or Firecrackers, we'll discuss that in hour two on the lighter side.

Also, if you don't like politics, that's okay, we got you covered on today's show.

And this is real.

Red Panda has taken a fall with a major injury.

Hopefully she'll be okay.

Anybody who's gone to a sporting event, you know exactly what I'm talking about here.

The woman who's on the big unicycle and balances like a thousand teacups and flip

around.

Yeah, I saw that the other day.

For a second, when you said Red Panda, I thought you were gonna say like, the Red Panda, its endangered species status has changed.

There's only one

Red Panda.

No, I understand

that.

And she is, I believe she's recuperating.

So we'll check in on that as well.

And we're gonna begin with just moments ago, about a half an hour plus ago, broke across the news headlines here.

This by the Associated Press House Republicans propelled President Donald Trump's $4.5 trillion tax breaks and spending cut bill to final congressional passage within the last hour, overcoming multiple setbacks to approve his signature second term.

policy package before the 4th of July deadline.

By the way, I'll editorialize that was a made up deadline.

He didn't have to do it by then.

But Trump said he wanted it done by then.

So they said, well, we got to get it done by then.

And by the way, last it was it was dueling budgets last night, Zombers at 1 a.m.

Or the early this morning, you had the state budget going on and then you had the federal budget going on.

Like four holdouts, one of them is Patrick.

He voted no one on the procedural so it couldn't move along and then he took off and and Johnson had to round him up.

I'm not I've got kitty This is real and we're gonna get into the stand shape for a little bit.

It was it was a little surreal Watching both of these budget processes happening in real time early this morning because the state budget the state of Wisconsin They were a lot in the legislature and the governor were trying to beat the clock

and get the state budget passed and signed into law before the federal budget.

Why is that?

Again, Schaefer will help us walk through it, but essentially there were monies for rural hospitals and reimbursements available at the federal level, but if Wisconsin hadn't passed their budget and signed into law,

before the federal budget was passed and signed into law, we would have missed out on all kinds of reimbursant monies.

So there was this beat the clock thing going on last night.

If you've got a rebate for something, but there's a time limit on it, they had to get it in for the time limit for the rebate or they weren't gonna get their money.

Right.

Save 11%, save big money at Minards.

It's always on.

It's like going on to do regular, it's always 11%.

Anyway, that.

At Minards, yes.

Yeah, exactly.

Uh, so back to the story, the APYR, the federal budget, the tight roll call of an hour ago, 218 to 214, came at a potentially high political cost, with two Republicans joining all Democrats opposed.

Republican leaders worked overnight, the president himself leading on a handful of skeptics to drop their opposition and send the bill to him to sign into law.

Democratic leader Hakim Jeffries of New York delayed voting.

by holding the floor for more than eight hours with a record breaking speech against the bill.

I thought you did a great job.

I didn't see the whole eight hours, obviously, but I want to play you a couple of these cuts of Hakeem Jeffries, because I think you made a couple of really great points.

First one, Hakeem Jeffries early this morning into later morning.

calling this federal budget bill of Donald Trump's and the Republicans immoral.

Here is Hakim Jeffries on the House floor.

You see budgets

are moral documents.

And in our view, Mr. Speaker, budgets should be designed to lift people up.

This reckless Republican budget that we are debating right now on the floor of the House of Representatives,

tears people down.

This reckless Republican budget is in a moral document and everybody should vote no against it because of how it attacks children and seniors and everyday Americans and people with disabilities.

This reckless Republican budget is in a moral document.

And that is why I stand here on the floor of the House of Representatives with my colleagues in the House Democratic Caucus to stand up and push back against it with everything we have on behalf of the American people.

Democratic leader of the House, Hakeem Jeffries, if you've never been involved in politics, you don't fully appreciate how hard it is to keep your caucus together.

In other words,

other everybody in your party to get them to vote unanimously on something.

It ain't easy, believe me.

And for Leader Jeffries to be able to do that, super impressive, number one.

Number two, I think his speech, you can take cuts of this and run against Republican Maga incumbents next fall, and it's gonna come back to haunt him.

By the way, our friend, our colleague, Jane McNair,

Great program every morning from 9 until 11.

By the way, Jane and Greg Bach and I are gonna be on the road here in a couple of weeks.

Ashgash Bagash up in Butternut and Hayward gonna be on the road, cannot wait for that.

Jane texts in and I'm glad she's reminding me to say this.

And she's absolutely right.

Because what Jeffrey's just said about this bill being immoral, gonna get more into Medicaid cuts in a minute.

These cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, better known as food stamps,

Many, if not most, they don't kick in until January of 2027.

Two months after the midterm.

So this, I mean, if I didn't care, which I do, but if I didn't care, I'd say, wow, this is politically beautiful because what this does is this passes, Trump's going to sign it into law, apparently tomorrow.

And so this allows the Republican, the modern Republican congressional incumbents to travel around their districts and say, so where are these cuts?

Where are these cuts?

You know, the libs kept ginning things up, lying.

There's no cuts.

Have you seen any cuts?

And people are going to say, no, we haven't seen them until January of 2027.

And then if the Democrats are able to take the House representatives and things go to hell,

Then, Maga and Trump are gonna say, see, this is what happens when you elect Democrats to put them in charge.

I mean, it's politically beautiful.

I'm not gonna lie about

that.

Unfortunately,

yeah.

It's a politically beautifully written bill for political expediency.

It's absolutely destructive.

Americans are going to die.

Nursing homes are going to close.

Already had one, I think it was Nebraska.

And Jane Gregor talking about this this morning, saw it a couple other places.

One nursing home has already said they're going to close down because of this.

And when I say people are going to die, no, it's not hyperbole.

This comes from a lot of different places that the fact of the matter is there's going to be thousands of people that lose their health care, probably hundreds of thousands, millions of people lose their health care coverage in this country because of this bill.

But the way it's been written, much of the pain will be pushed off.

So.

Well, we'll see about that.

Have we got time for a little bit of the second Jeffrey's Cut Summers?

All right, here's Keem Jeffries talking about these Medicaid cuts on the House floor.

It's extraordinary to me that as a result of this one big, ugly bill that's all out of salt on health care in this country.

millions of people are going to lose coverage, thrown off of health care, set in motion a chain of events where hospitals will close, nursing homes will shut down people unable to get the care that they need to live a life of dignity and respect.

And that as a result of the all-out Republican assault on healthcare in the United States of America, people will die.

Tens of thousands, perhaps year after year after year, as a result of the Republican assault on the healthcare

of the American people.

I'm sad.

I never thought that I'd be on the House floor saying that this is a crime scene.

And House Democrats want no part of it.

No part of it.

House

Speaker,

Jeff Reads on Medicaid cuts, calling it a crime scene.

He's not wrong.

Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont tweeting this out.

16 million Americans will lose their health care they currently have.

under Trump's quote unquote big beautiful bill.

How many will lose their health care in your state if it passes?

This is interesting but tragic.

According to Senator Sanders numbers that he got from CBL Congressional Budget Office in Wisconsin, 276,175.

Let me say that number again.

276,175.

fellow Wisconsinites are going to lose health care in the state of Wisconsin.

I'm no whiz statistics, but the chances are if you're not one of those 276,000 plus, you're going to know somebody who is.

Might be your grandparents, your mom, your neighbor.

This unfortunately will haunt us here in Wisconsin.

And the only recourse, assuming there are midterm elections and that is not a given, is to get out and vote.

show on the Civic Media Radio network.

Glad to have you.

Long summers on the board.

22 now past the hour of two o'clock on a Thursday, July 3rd, 2025.

We're going to get back to the budget federally in just a moment and coming up after the bottom of the hour.

Civic Media's political editor, founder of the Recombobulation Area.

Dan Schaefer will be along.

Have a half an hour discussion on the state budget.

Lots of breaking news would be remiss if we didn't mention this other breaking news very important particularly for listeners of the UK in Southeast, Wisconsin, but I think bears mentioning of course here statewide according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Great reporting by Sophie Carson and Claudie 11's one person who was shot and killed and two others or shot during the early morning hours today

including a Shorewood police officer who was struck in his ballistic vest and treated and released from a hospital.

I want to make clear this is Shorewood in the Milwaukee area and there's another Shorewood municipality here in Dane County.

This is the Shorewood in the southeast part of the state.

Back to the story, the person who died was an adult woman, according to the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's office.

Officials have not revealed the condition of the other person shot in Shorewood.

Police were searching for a suspect before an apparent chase began ending in the Halleyard Park neighborhood on Milwaukee later in the morning.

Medical examiners said they responded to that scene.

and indicating that someone had died.

Other reporting is that the accused or alleged shooter had died at that scene.

It's still a fluid situation.

We'll continue to update that as it becomes available here at Civic Media.

But again, a shooting this morning in Shorewood in Southeast Milwaukee and more reporting that there was a mass shooting at least four people killed in Chicago.

24 minutes past the hour of two o'clock, back to this federal budget being passed about an hour ago.

The ramifications thereof, according to Bernie Sanders, over 246,000 people in Wisconsin will lose their healthcare coverage.

276,000 plus after Donald Trump signs it tomorrow.

855-752-4842.

Let's go to the phone lines.

Tom in McFarland, listening on WMDX on the line.

Tom, thanks for calling.

Let's see.

Thanks for taking my call.

And you know, just talking about those Medicaid cuts and how people are going to lose their insurance.

I was talking with a couple of MAGA friends who are on BadgerCare and they're saying that while they're already working and they see nothing wrong with the work requirements that are going to be put into place.

They think that's actually a good thing.

Until I pointed out to them that the way that they're going to lose their insurance and they're going to lose their insurance is because the federal state or federal budget reduces the amount of money that's going to be sent back to the state to cover the cost of Medicaid.

Correct.

States are going to have to make up those costs and they won't have the funds.

What's going to happen is they're going to have to increase the eligibility.

So right now,

for Badger care after this goes through you are no longer going to be eligible for that Badger care,

right?

That's how most of these people are going to lose their insurance and they were gobsmacked When I pointed out to them that that's how it's going to happen And you know, I wish I could say that I you know thoughts and prayers Right, right, but they were warned I was telling them prior to the election that this is what they were going to do and they didn't believe so

But illegal immigrants won't get

it.

Yeah, as he says facetiously.

Yeah, I get that.

No, I mean, there's a lot of finding out going on and about to happen across this country right now.

The other thing is, and some of this is still fluid, as I understand it, people are going to have to file for eligibility instead of once a year, twice a year.

So you have all that extra paperwork and all that bureaucracy and the cost on top of that.

So, you know, it's someone who spent a few months on BadgerCare.

It ain't easy.

So I get it.

So thanks, Tom.

I appreciate the call.

855-752-4842.

Let's go up to beautiful Eau Claire, Chippewa Valley on Gene and Eau Claire, WCFW The Tap.

Gene, thanks for calling.

We'll see.

Well, thank you so much for covering this.

This is just outstanding.

I watched the whole thing.

I thought, oh, man, I hope these guys play some of those clips because I hope people get a chance to watch it because it was

really informative and all of the different amendments that the different people offered to try to protect the people in the United States and they would just turn down, turn down, turn down and all of them were very significant.

And then also there was a little bit of religion thrown in there.

I'm glad that he did that.

It was like Jeffery's you're

talking about the Democratic leader in

the house.

Yes.

Yes.

And it was just great, you know, the way they were, where they wear the crosses and, you know, tell people how, you know, different things.

And anyway, it was so great because he did burn up the Bible and I used to see Sunday school years going, you know, where you're supposed to go, you know, the people and stuff.

So if you get a chance also brought up.

project 2025 at the very end of this speech and you can find it probably on on public television, you know, I'm real cool if you go through that.

But anyway, thank you very much.

And I hope you have a good weekend.

Yeah,

I have a great fourth of July weekend.

Let's go quickly to Mark and per the stack.

Mark, about 45 seconds.

It's yours.

Let's see.

Yeah, well, in honor of the holiday coming up, recognition of our Declaration of Independence, I'll remind people that in the Declaration includes this line, a prince whose character is thus marked

by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of your free people.

Now there's a little bit of change there, you know, that the leader of a free people is more of a parent.

But Donald Trump is just trying to be a tyrant.

And he's, in every case, he is what the Anti-Federalist were worried about, surrounded by minions and mistresses, and now with his ice troops going out there, murdering Jena series.

Appreciate the

call, Mark.

Yep, thank you very much, Mark.

Yeah, that's something that's not going to allow to play either, that the ICE budget...

The budget for Homeland Security, like it's five times larger.

It really is Donald Trump's own police force, if you will.

And I haven't been able to confirm this because there's been so much going on.

So I want to say that I've not confirmed this, but I'm just going to throw it out there.

Maybe somebody can point me to a confirmation from a reliable source.

But there seems to be language in this bill that also abdicates part of Congress's ability to control things to the executive.

to Donald Trump.

If that turns out to be true, Katie bar the door.

Back after this on the Civic Media Ready Network with Dan Schaefer talking about the state budget that passed and Evers signed into law.

What does it mean for his reelection bid?

Don't go anywhere on the Civic Media Ready Network.

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man.

Milwaukee's best.

It's a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity.

Hey man, what about Milwaukee, man?

It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition.

I think God would want us to go to Milwaukee.

And it lies between the pit of a man's fears and the summit of his knowledge.

Think about Milwaukee.

This is the dimension of imagination.

You are now entering

the recombobulation area.

Welcome back to the title ball show

and the recombobulation area 35 minutes past the hour of two o'clock on Thursday, July 3rd.

That intro can only mean that one person is on the other side of that Milwaukee and a lover of Summerfest, at least in smaller doses.

And nobody is a bigger Bucks fan.

and a great political writer, their very own civic media political editor, and founder of the Reconpopulation area, Dan Schaefer.

Mr. Schaefer, good morning, or a continuing, can you sleep at all last night?

I did sleep a little bit.

You know, it's a discombobulating day, perhaps, to be covering politics in Wisconsin, watching the governor sign the bill for the budget at 1.32 a.m., I believe, was the exact time that that signature hit the paper.

So, yeah, lots going on in state politics and lots for us to discuss

here.

I didn't know that you were coming on to talk about politics.

I thought you were coming here to talk about the big story this morning, as being reported in the Milwaukee Journal said.

Now, Pat Conanton bids farewell to Milwaukee on Instagram post.

He's been traded to Charlotte.

That's right.

It's a lot of moves for the bucks this week, you know as someone who lives at the intersection of sports particularly NBA basketball and politics This has been a incredibly newsworthy week And I'm gonna I'm gonna need some time to really recombobulate at the end of it.

That's when Dan Shafer is doing over the fourth of July weekend.

All right, I can't work it one The main reason we're here is talking about the state budget.

So you Shaly Pippman our news director and Jimmy Cusco for news department

all up last night.

I had fallen asleep in my chair after trying to get through Colbert.

The old man, Todd, couldn't do it.

I woke up to reruns of Seinfeld about one o'clock.

I'm like, oh, well, look at that.

You know, but you guys stayed up.

You did a great job at all of our civic media socials, updating folks.

Tell us what happened, Dan, at the end and explain this rush to get the budget done.

Yeah, so there you know, obviously there's there's a little bit of political news happening today So along with the state budget being signed in Madison the the so-called one big beautiful bill That Donald Trump was advancing through Congress also just passed in the house this afternoon and there was a reason for for the state of Wisconsin to pass this before the federal bill passed it meant

that it's kind of a complicated, long story short, is that they needed to pass this with a certain change involving some compensation for hospitals, involving some Medicaid reimbursement, you know, and some federal dollars that the state would have missed out on had they not made this budget change before that bill was passed.

So if

Republican caucus and Hakeem Jeffries had their poop in a group, and if Hakeem Jeffries, or Johnson that is,

Jefferies hadn't held the floor for eight hours.

If this thing in DC passed first and Trump put his signature on it, then Wisconsin would have lost out on millions of dollars of available money to help essentially hospitals and reimbursement.

Yeah about a billion dollars a little over a billion dollars I believe would have been at risk and you know never mind that Republicans in the state have been denying Medicaid expansion for more than a decade now which would bring about a billion dollars every budget cycle to the state of Wisconsin never mind the logic of that but but

I think that added some urgency.

And some of what I was hearing as the budget process was unfolding in Madison last night was that they were watching what was happening in DC too as there was some certain delays.

So I think it ended up being about 12 hours after Tony Evers signed his.

budget that the federal budget passed in the House.

So everything was was on a pretty tight timeline here.

You know, it kind of frustrating, really, though, if you zoom out and talk about what's been happening in the state budget discussions for weeks and weeks and weeks, these just been going in circles and going in circles.

And as I reported here about this same time with you last Friday on the Todd Alba show that Diane Hasselbein, the Senate Democratic Minority Leader, was finally invited to the table because Republican

did not have the votes to pass the budget with only Republican votes.

So adding her to negotiations, I don't know why it took so long to do that, but it eventually did and things moved quickly once she joined negotiations and Evers announced the deal.

What was it, Tuesday morning?

Voted on it yesterday into the wee hours of the night and now here we are on Thursday with a state budget.

Talk to Dan Schaeffer, political editor for Civic Media and founder of the Reconpopulation Area.

work, both at civicmedia.us.

Great story by Dan, Shaly Pittman, Jimmy Cuscar, entire team breaking down this budget, civicmedia.us.

Find it there.

And also all of this work at www.vrecombobulationarea.news.

Type it correctly.

You got it.

You got it.

You

got it right

there.

For those nuts of us like us who follow this political stuff, I always liked the the parlor game of winners and losers.

And let's start politically.

And then let's go policy wise and Wisconsinites.

You brought up the first one, I think Diane Hesselebein, State Senator Diane Hesselebein, Democratic leader in the Senate, winner.

Absolutely a winner in this.

You know, even people who are really frustrated with this budget and there are a lot of Democrats in the state legislature who are frustrated with this budget, people are

really have a high opinion of the work that Diane Hasselbein did to get this budget over the finish line.

It has been a pretty long time since they have invited any legislative democratic leaders to the table in any kind of budget negotiations and that she was invited last week and made a number of changes.

I think some of what I'm hearing that she has been credited for is the increases in funding for the UW system, the increases in

special education reimbursement rates, and a number of the kind of one-time capital projects that emerged to get this budget over the finish line, too.

A lot of those within the UW system, but also, you know, a number of projects in a variety of different municipalities and counties as well.

So, yeah, a lot of people have a really, really high opinion of the work that Diane Hasselbein did once she was invited to the table for this budget.

Where the votes lied for the Democrats, those who crossed over and voted for this.

La Crosse seemed to have a disproportionate amount of state legislators on the Democratic side vote for this.

And we talked about this story in the Hill yesterday at the federal level, Republican from US Senator from Alaska, Lisa Markowski, she got called by one of the Democrats a cheap date because she sold out her vote on the federal budget for harpoons for fishers in Alaska.

I mean, was Brad Paff a cheap date?

And Steve Doyle over there in La Crosse, did they?

get enough for the UW system over there?

I think that I forget the exact dollar amount, but I know that they got a big.

capital investment for a project on the UW La Crosse campus.

So I know that was one of the big things that they talked about there.

Yeah, you're right.

Senator Brad Paff was among the five Senate Democrats who joined the majority of Republicans in the state Senate to pass the budget.

You also had a couple people from the Fox Valley and Green Bay area and also Eau Claire who crossed over to pass the budget as

well.

So are those Democrats?

crossed over and some of them are in kind of purple-ish districts.

Are they winners then?

I would say so.

I would say so because I think ultimately it was a budget that it needed to get passed in some form or another.

And I think the inclusion of Senate Democrats in particular.

I mean, assembly different Democrats, they were not at the negotiating table.

It's a little bit of a different dynamic largely there.

But I think Senate Democrats being able to get a number of things that are seen as really big wins in this budget, there are a number of things that I think people, we can talk about some.

the losers in this as

well.

But I think the Senate Democrats really have emerged as probably the big winner in this budget.

On the other side of the aisle, Majority Leader, Republican Leader, Devin Lemihue, and Senate President, Mary Flaskowski.

Not odds Very much at odds in this in this process Felskowski was one of the four Republican state senators to vote against this budget She gave a pretty impassioned speech Decrying governor Evers in this process as well, but I think I forget the exact details But JR Ross from was politics pointed out that this was the first time in a really long time that a you know majority leader and Senate president of the same party were on opposite sides

of a budget vote.

So that was pretty interesting too.

And I think it just, it also shows that there is a little bit of disarray.

You know, Robin Voss might have his assembly caucus pretty much in line, but there's definitely some disarray among Senate Republicans, that's for sure.

Agreed.

Let's go to the assembly, Speaker Robin Voss, winner or loser.

I think he has to be seen as a winner as much as it pains me to say it.

I'm not a huge fan of the assembly speaker, but I think he got a lot of what he was looking for in this budget.

He was really driving the conversation for a lot of it, and he seemed pretty pleased with the budget as it was signed, and as he kind of wrapped things up right before that final vote.

And yeah, only losing one Republican vote in this, too.

Scott Allen of Waukesha, who voted, who is typically,

vote against Voss from time to time, but really only losing that one vote and getting a lot of the priorities that they wanted in the budget past, including that tax cut that they had been talking about over and over and over.

I bought every speech from a Republican assembly member as I was watching into the wee hours last night.

It was about a tax cut.

Governor Tony Evers, winner or loser, I ask you, Dan Schafer.

I would say it's a little bit more mixed when it comes to Tony Evers.

I think there are aspects of the budget that can be seen as a huge win for Evers, particularly childcare.

I think Evers really went to bat for that issue.

You've talked about this on the show over the last few weeks.

He was saying that he's not going to sign a budget unless there is funding for childcare.

So I think that aspect of it was really strong from Evers.

But I think he also

approached this budget the same way as he has for the last three budget cycles.

And I think recognizing the leverage that Democrats had with needing Democratic votes in the Senate to get this over the finish line, I think Evers could have approached this process a little bit differently.

And I think that's why you're seeing some of the consternation from legislative Democrats, particularly those in the Assembly, many of whom voted against this budget.

And I think that

You know, it's a it's a story of missed opportunities as far as a number of people are concerned with what is being ultimately delivered in this budget.

So I think they're you know, it's a it's a mixed results.

I think when it comes to the governor here,

I want to get to the assembly Democrats in particular who are strong nose and trying to lobby people to call their state legislators in a minute.

But before I get to that, Dan, well, let's speak.

Let's see.

Have you speak to this for a minute on.

to your point that there was a lot of people that said, well, why did Evers, their words, not mine, cave in and some of this stuff, not hold the line on K-12 education.

But I kind of was like, look, I mean, there is a point, because I've been in the room with Robin Boss, my former boss, where he'll just say, thank you very much, we're done here, and walk away.

I like your boss impression, by the way.

I've

seen it.

Thank you.

But I mean, he's very polite, but he's just very firm.

And I think that, you know, I don't think this is a great budget at all.

But I think maybe it was the best that could be done under the circumstances.

What do you think?

I think you're right about that.

I mean, this is, you know, Robin Voss controls the Republicans control.

This is the nature of divided government, right?

You're not going to get everything that everybody wants.

It's going to be a purple budget.

But I think the difference of this budget from the last few that Tony Evers have signed, the last.

three Republican budgets that Tony Evers have signed and taken, you know, at times some creative approaches to the line item veto and whatnot.

But I think not recognizing the leverage that they had in the state Senate until really last week when Diane Hasselbein was invited to negotiations, I think they should have brought her in much, much earlier.

I agree that they should include Democrats earlier in the process as well.

When we come back, you know, play little John McLaughlin.

with Dan Schaefer.

On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being not at all, 10 being metaphysical certainty that you will run again.

Does Tony Evers run for a third term?

We will ask Dan Schaefer on the other side and I will give you the correct answer.

Don't go anywhere.

It's the awful show on Civic Media.

Welcome back to the Tahoe Bowl show of the Senate Meteor Radio Network across Wisconsin.

It's 25.

I try to try that again.

Time is eight minutes.

My clock is off today.

My clock is off.

How about shapers eight minutes for the hour of three o'clock and play a little what's worse on the other side today.

A

Fourth of July edition sparklers or firecrackers.

We'll talk about that now or two but right now back into political conversation with Civic Media's political editor and founder of the recombobulation area Dan Schaefer joining us live from Milwaukee.

Nobody's more Milwaukee than Dan Schaefer.

That's my opinion.

We love it when you're here.

You

should be.

It's a great city.

For those of us old enough to remember the old McLaughlin group television show, he'd have a panel.

And at the end, he'd ask a question on a scale of one to 10.

And he'd call people's names out for a brief answer.

He'd say, Pap Buchanan, Eleanor Clift, Chris Matthews.

So in John McLaughlin's style, I'm going to ask you, on a scale of one to 10, one being no chance at all,

10 being medical metaphysical certainty that he runs for a third term.

Does Tony Evers run again?

I ask you, Dan Schaefer.

Well, obviously I have had a bit of a say on this.

this matter.

As you know, I recall him about why I think Tony Evers should not run for a third term.

As I was writing that piece, I was asking people what they were thinking if he was going to run again.

And I think that the feedback that I was getting was that he was genuinely had not yet decided and was going to decide after the state budget.

Here we are the day after the state budget was signed.

I guess I'll go with a six.

more of a 50-50 chance, but I guess I would lean slightly towards him running again.

because I do think he has approached the last budget process and all of that, saying that with an eye towards running again, it does seem like that's the direction that things are headed, but I would not be surprised either way.

The correct answer?

How's that squishy middle ground answer?

The

correct answer is two.

Tony

Evers has put in

his time in the public service, three terms as a school superintendent, state school superintendent, two terms as governor.

I think that he is going to call it a win.

And the main reason I say that, Dan Schaefer, is in my opinion, this is not a budget you go run for reelection on.

because the cuts to K-12 education or the lack of funding, I mean, yeah, okay, 500 million for Special Ed, that's great.

But there are school districts, larger ones like Eau Claire are going to lose $2 million next biennium.

And there are smaller ones that are going to be really devastated.

He's going to lose the K-12 pro education voting base.

Those people, they're not going to vote for Tom Tiffany, but I think they stay home.

If he runs again, he can't politically afford that.

I think he was just ready to be done with this.

He was ready to sign pretty much anything.

And I think he's out of here.

that's an interesting that's an interesting point and I do think there are you know if we're going back to kind of the winners and losers of the budget and all that there are a lot of people in the public education space who are especially upset with the governor's budget and with this compromise and you know we heard it in all the speeches from especially from assembly Democrats last night talking about how the lack of you know a lack of funding for public schools in this budget is going to lead to more and more of the wave of referendums that we've been seeing.

So yeah, I do think, you know...

I do wonder if this, if Evers approached this like one last uncomfortable compromise before he doesn't run for a third term, or if this is kind of the opposite end of the thing would be saying, hey, people like bipartisanship, people like a governor who gets things done, and is that the line that Evers would bring, hard to say.

I

think last, I mean, do you see that pathetic,

It was like him alone in an eschewed tie.

Looks like he woke up from a nap, but he signs it with three people in his office.

It was like.

It was like AJ Biaport and a couple other people were the only ones there.

I mean,

that's not

something you run on, Dan.

I mean, if you're gonna run again, you do this, you force some of these Democrats to stand behind you and you say, this is only a start.

I am calling the legislature back in to refund this.

And quickly, to this point, I listened to James McNair's show.

They brought this up this morning with a childcare worker.

The childcare provision, the funding that's in here, it's only for one year.

a big chunk of the child care changes really only extends the child care accounts type funding for another year.

I think that there's a lot of confusion with that.

Another piece that the Evers issued a partial veto, he issued 23 partial vetoes as he signed that budget around 1.30 AM last night.

One of those was to remove the deadline to close the Green Bay Correctional.

That was a big thing that people brought up in negotiations too.

So instead of having the 2029, I believe deadline to close, he removed that deadline.

and so no, there is not a set date for that.

I think that has a lot of people.

I've seen on both sides of the aisle frustrated with that decision as well.

Many thanks to the great Angela Lange tuning in on X for giving us that tidbit reminder as well.

She's always great whenever she's on a day and other people across this network.

About a minute or so left Dan Schaefer.

Any final thoughts on the state budget?

Or can Wisconsinites take a little bit of a summer vacation over the holiday weekend now?

Is there any big breaking

news that's going to happen?

Todd, now you just jinxed it.

Now you just, I was gonna say, if you didn't say anything, I say we get a couple days to celebrate with our family and friends for the fourth of July weekend.

But now that you said something, Todd, now I think that we're gonna get hit with another tidal wave of news or something like that.

I'll be

traveling with my Starling setup just in case something happens over the holiday.

What does the Schaefer family do over the fourth weekend?

We're staying in Milwaukee for the fourth this weekend.

It's the best time of year to be in Milwaukee, summer in Milwaukee.

We're looking forward to watching some fireworks at our neighborhood on the west side of town here, probably going to Washington Park to watch those fireworks and eating lots of good food, having a few adult beverages and enjoying ourselves.

What's your favorite to brat?

Oh, um, there's so many good ones in Milwaukee.

I'll go with the usingers Italian.

I

just had a usingers hot dog Grilla very very good to using her.

It's a great place there in Milwaukee.

Nothing more Milwaukee than Dan Schaefer host.

Why do I keep saying that the political editor of civic media also recompobulation area Dan Schaefer.

Thank you so much.

Have a great day down there.

Thanks for having me.

And remember this if you have a fifth of the fourth

Don't go fourth or the fifth.

Back after this.

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.

Across Wisconsin.

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

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm Todd Albaugh, and along with Mr. Aaron Zommer as our producer and engineer, welcome into hour number two of the big program, six past the hour of three o'clock.

It's Thursday.

July the 3rd, 2025.

It's a great day to be Wisconsinite for the World Headquarters in downtown Madison.

Blue sky is warm out.

It's 4th of July weather.

I'm not sure what happened with the openings.

Yeah, I accidentally redacted your name.

Sorry about that.

Is there something I don't know?

Is there somebody new in the chair on Monday?

If you don't know it, I don't know it either.

I wouldn't say that around here.

I wouldn't say that at all.

As far as I know, as far as I know, it's still the Todd Allball show.

So we've got that going for us.

Great first hour.

Glad to have everybody, everybody along.

Many thanks to Dan Schaefer, our political editor here at Civic Media.

Big second hour in store, a holiday edition of What's Worse.

Sparklers are firecrackers.

Gonna talk about that in a minute, but wanted to finish up conversation on the state budget that passed in the wee hours of this morning and signed into law by Governor Tony Evers at 1.31, 1.32 this morning.

According to Dan Schaefer and again many thanks to our great news department for staying up.

You could find their great article detailing the state budget at Pacific media dot US Check it out there want to go to the phone lines to start off the hour 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 Troy in Montorrem standing by Troy.

Thanks for holding.

What do you got?

I just

want to make sure that

Governor Evers got assurances from boss that they're gonna spend the money and not hold it up and join finance like they did the PFAS money and on

and

on in the last budget.

I think that's good.

Because writing this budget doesn't do any good if you don't actually spend the money.

Yeah, I think that's a great point and all I can say is I hope I agree.

I hope there was some hand shake assurance.

It seems

It seems, obviously I wasn't in the room, but from the reporting and what I've heard and written, or heard and read, is that the agreement, essential between Voss and Evers, with a little bit of Senate Republicans and Democrats sprinkled in, the agreement they came up with.

And again, I've gone through this budget process from the inside before.

And the way it was fostered through the Assembly and the Senate, essentially on the same day,

and Evers signed it into law minutes afterwards, I'm here to tell you that this thing was cut and dried before they even hit the Senate or the Assembly floor.

It was done.

And so I think that they, however much of a gentle person's agreement you want to say, I think that they've said, I'm trusting you if you trust me and neither one of us better blank it up or they'll be held to pay.

and we'll come after whatever side breaks the agreement.

So I would hope that you're right, Troy, but who knows, unless you were in the room.

All right, have a great

day.

Yeah, hey, happy fourth year, Troy.

Have a great Independence Day weekend.

Thank you so much for calling in.

855-752-4842, 855-752-4842.

I'll say this, again, I don't think it was a great budget bill at all at the state level, but I'm not,

I can't give you a better solution right now.

My old boss Dale Schultz used to say, well, I was a young staffer and I come in and say, well, damn, you know, how about this?

So this isn't going to work.

And he'd look at me and he'd say, don't bring me problems.

Bring me solutions.

And at first it really ticked me off, but he was absolutely right.

And so if I'm going to sit here and criticize it and say, well, you know, it was a terrible thing.

Nobody should have done this.

I because I wasn't in the room I've had a little experience with with boss and meetings like this There would have been a point in my opinion where he would have just folded up the tent and gone away I think the Republicans at least in the assembly were ready and prepared either a not to have a budget and let current spending continue which would have meant zero dollars to childcare Or they would have just passed an even worse Republican version that they knew evers would veto in full

Then they would have campaigned next year in the for legislative elections saying look we produced a budget and it would have given you so much more and tax breaks and everything else but you know the Liberal Democratic governor decided to veto it and so my guess is only a guess that Governor Evers and his team said look a Partial loaf is better than nothing and you've heard me say this before if you're a regular listener the old Star Trek adage.

It's a Kofi Ashi Maru

It's a no-win scenario.

There was no win here.

And I'm very disappointed.

My biggest disappointment in Governor Evers and Democrats is they made a choice.

They chose to hold the line.

Their red line, Evers' red line, was at least some funding for childcare, which I agree with, but as Dan Schaefer said, it's only for a year.

And they made a red line for at least some of the UW expenditures.

And any regular listener of this program knows there are a few larger proponents and cheerleaders of the UW system to meet.

But much of that money is for one-time money for facilities.

What you get is great.

Also, there's a little nugget in there that allows the legislature to oversee professors' workloads, essentially.

So I know how this is going to happen.

Next time, next biennium.

If Republicans are in the charge of the assembly, they're gonna go back through, and they're basically gonna audit professors at EW campuses, which by the way, many, not just Madison, are research universities, so it's not just how many kids you teach, you're researching, you're doing research writing, you're doing publications, all that's part of your tenure, which this bill does not take into account.

So I don't think it's all you know sure there's some good things for UW in here, but it's it's not but so evers decided to make UW and At least some childcare money his red line What he chose not to make a red line is funding for K-12 public schools And I think that's by any fair measurement a disappointment

of a three-time state school superintendent and someone who likes to be known or call himself the education governor.

And that, more than anything else, is the reason that I don't think that Tony Evers is going to run for other term.

Because politically, I don't see how you run on that.

Sure, to Dan Shafer's point, you can run around saying I had a bipartisan bill, but you're going to have Democrats, key Democrats, who are really good at social media.

and ginning people up, calling you out.

And that's for the people that love you.

And the other side is going to use that against you as well.

So I think the budget was a Kobayashi Maru.

I think this is not a budget and also not just the budget, but the way he signed it in his office with a handful of staffers around.

That's not a marketing type of situation where you launch a third term for governor.

But maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe I wouldn't be the first time but those are my thoughts on that 14 minutes now past the hour of three o'clock Should we do the thing first then go back to some more serious things?

I have some before we leave red panda is in the hospital We got to talk about her because a lot of people say I don't care about politics Todd, but holy cow.

What's going on red panda?

And also we have a great story

on if you're traveling this weekend via airline, be careful going through the TSA line.

Need to explain that as well.

But first, right now, it's time for what's worse.

Let's go.

Time once again for what's worse.

You don't prize what he involved, nothing to give away, but it is your chance to have your voice heard on all 11 news talk sports stations in the second largest radio network across Wisconsin, second only to Wisconsin Public Radio, Civic Media.

No better place to have your business advertised than right here.

Go to civicmedia.us.

Our great sales team will be in contact.

We'd love to have you as a partner.

All right.

This is a holiday edition Zombers.

We'll see how this goes.

Today's category timely timely indeed.

We don't have a graphic today because Originally, we were gonna do a kind of a best of today, but a couple days ago Zomers and I said too much breaking news We're gonna be and I'm glad we were because this was important.

This is important So this is this part is not important But it might be fun.

What's worse?

sparklers or fire crackers sparklers or fire

Crackers eight five five seven five two four eight four two eight five five seven five two four eight four two You can also text us on the civic media app Go to your Apple or Android device go to the app store in the search bar type in civic CIVIC MO USC Civic media MIT IA Civic media, it'll pop up.

It takes less than a minute.

It is free.

It's what gale king that CBS calls

A deal.

We should talk about CVS actually before we a big turns out to merge now a company like CVS.

All it cost you is $16 million.

Sherry Redstone, head of Paramount Global, who is trying to merge with Skydams Media.

And it is before Trump's FCC being sued by Trump.

for like a billion dollars over these trumped up, pun intended allegations against 60 minutes on the vice president Harris interview from last year.

And CBS agreed to mediation and it was announced a couple of days ago that CBS Paramount is going to pay Trump 16 million dollars.

So there you go.

There you go.

You want that merger approved by my FCC?

The price tag is about 16 million.

All right, what's worse I get off track sparklers or fire crackers 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 Julie listening on WXCO Bull Falls radio in beautiful wassauce says fire crackers are worse for persons with PTSD or dementia also For pets and wildlife sparklers cause more injuries, but that is the fault of the person using them

All right, very interesting indeed.

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

Tammy listening out in beautiful Virginia.

Hello, Virginia.

It's not like very King now.

Hello, Virginia.

Tammy in Virginia says, firecrackers are worse.

Wes, listening in Middleton on WMDX, not much to celebrate this year for the fourth.

Tomorrow will be a solemn day of reflection.

No patriotism in this house as what our nation once stood for is dismantled.

Wes, that's a little morbid.

But no, I get it.

I get it.

I get it.

I know friends last year.

Close friends who went who went to a Fourth of July parade, but were black because they were so down.

And that was last year.

I don't discount what you're saying, Wes.

And do I believe that American democracy is on the verge of death?

Yes, I do.

Do I think we're quite there yet?

Not quite close, but not quite.

But as I said in an earlier program this week,

I think that when we say that we're so down, we're not going to celebrate the 4th of July, we're attaching politics to it.

We're attaching current occupants of the White House to it.

The American dream is still alive.

I see it traveling around Wisconsin all the time.

Neighbors helping out neighbors, people raising money for someone whose house burned down.

People help get their neighbors' boat in and out of the water.

They're not asking them, hey, who'd you vote for, Trump or Biden?

Hey, you need your boat you need to have your your dock help put in I'll help you out That's the American spirit.

I'm celebrating We it's still alive.

Don't make a mistake about it fire crackers or sparklers 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 come on back

This Katy Perry tune goes out to Trig V.

Olsen.

We're 23 and past the hour of 3 o'clock.

That was fantastic, Zombers.

Trigby Olson, our friend of the Lincoln Project, his girls, dragged him to Katy Perry concert.

He's not a fan, and I love the fact you played that.

Yeah, and then I played that music anytime he came on for months, but because we saw him once a week, for me it wasn't that...

Like much time that I experienced for him.

It was every time he saw us.

He heard Katy Perry, right,

right Right in the middle.

What's worse?

sparklers or firecrackers Sparklers or firecrackers eight five five seven five two four eight four two our very own Parker Olson the great producer

of almost an up north news.

It's morning to pack, by the way, happy birthday, Patrick Jerome Crichtlow.

Happy birthday.

His birthday up there at Lake Wissota.

He's a couple of old fashions in, I hope.

He deserves it.

He deserves it.

Parker is his great producer, says neither of those are fun fireworks.

I guess firecrackers are worse since they don't have any sparkles.

All right, I think that's a fair, fair take.

My sister Heather watching on Facebook up a beautiful Eau Claire says tough one Growing up in the farm firecrackers and cow pies were not fun They worked But getting sparks from sparkles or getting sparks from the sparklers on your bare arms and legs was also not great But honestly cherished memories from those times.

I guess I'll go with firecrackers being worse

She also follows up and says I'm also celebrating the original region reason for the 4th of July saying no to a king Even more reason to celebrate this year Let's go Now see we're on the same page imagine that me and my sister on the on the same page I mean I

I wasn't going to get into the series.

Well, first of all, let's do a quick one here.

This is Erica McFarland.

Erica McFarland on MDX, a new texter.

Thank you, Eric, for tuning in.

Says, can you follow up on a story I heard that Wisconsin needed to pass and sign the budget, the state budget, before Congress passed theirs so that Wisconsin could claim the taxes that health providers paid to the feds.

That's essentially got it right, Eric.

We addressed that earlier on with Dan Schaeffer.

No problem if you missed it.

But to answer your question quickly, yes, that was part of the reason they had to get that.

done and signed at the state level in order to be eligible for federal money for health care and rural and hospitals before the feds passed their budget and Trump signed it.

So that, yes, that's essentially true.

Thanks for listening, Eric.

Appreciate it.

John, in Menominee Falls on the 4th of July, says, I would argue the American dream is still alive for white people, for African Americans, this predominantly poverty and gun violence, for Hispanic people.

It seems to be poverty.

and being abducted off the streets by ICE agents.

I've always taken the view that if everyone isn't free, then no one is free.

This has never been more true than it is today.

There won't be any celebrating at my house.

John, thanks for listening.

And again, I get the sediment.

Believe me, I get it.

But all I'm saying is I think that when we look at it that way,

that we're allowing Trump and Trumpism to steal the American dream from us.

You know, I'm gonna get a little bit like Mr. Douglas here for a second in Green Acres.

I need some fife and drum music.

But the American dream doesn't live in one person.

It's not in the White House.

The American dream and ideal lives in each and every one of us in our hearts.

It lives in people in foreign lands that up until recently looked at America as the one place to come for freedom and democracy and opportunity Yes, there's some yahoo is right now some extremists in the White House Maga leadership most the Republican Congress who is attacking that dream But if we just throw up our hands and say well, it doesn't exist anymore than it won't We it's up to us eternal vigilance to keep it alive

So don't let those people steal it from us.

It's up to each and every one of us to keep the American dream alive.

And yes, as Joe Biden says, we've never fully lived up to the American ideal, never fully lived up to the American dream.

But we have to keep fighting for it.

I think there was a lot of us in this country who didn't serve in the military, who are too too young to have lived through World War II.

And the terribleness of that and the loss and the sacrifice But we survived and I still believe that we can survive this But we can't give it up 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 Kurt in medicine.

Thanks for listening to MDX Kurt.

What's a

you?

I'm gonna have to respectfully disagree with you.

Why and here is this is how I see it

By not participating in the Fourth of July, I think you're conflating your argument for starters.

But by not participating is really no different than marching on the Capitol protesting what the president has done.

It's a function of protest.

It's not saying that democracy is dead, but it's recognizing those who have been betrayed by our country and have been swept off the streets.

So I just simply disagree with your

You're a viewpoint on that.

No, you're entitled to that.

I appreciate the call.

Always appreciate listenership, Kurt.

Let's go quickly to Gordy down in the town of Dunn.

Gordy, thanks for calling in.

What say you?

Got 45 seconds.

I'm glad your sister had the cow pie experience.

Parking back to when I was a young lad growing up on the farm and we were blowing up very fresh cow pies and my buddy Jack lit one and it never went off and never went off.

He went and checked on the dud, and just as he bent over, he got a face full of fresh cow stuff.

That's fantastic, Courtney.

See, you get it.

You get it.

Thanks, Courtney.

Have a great 4th of July.

Appreciate you.

Come on back.

Take some more phone calls, some texts as well.

We're in the middle of what's worse.

We're talking about the 4th of July, what it means to you.

We're going to talk about the red panda and traveling with TSA before it's all done.

Come on back.

It's on the Top All Balls show across the Civic Media Radio Network 35 past the hour of three o'clock.

That is music Xamers tells me from the big Red Panda show.

Ever been like a Bucks game or something like that?

This woman goes by Red Panda.

She's enormously popular.

Instagram, all of her socials.

I mean, she is an acrobat extraordinaire.

But guess what?

Gravity won out.

Yeah, it turns out being on top of like a six to 10 foot tall unicycle can be dangerous.

It can be dangerous.

We'll talk about that in just a little while.

Right now, we're in the middle of what's worse.

Also talking a little bit about 4th of July, Independence Day tomorrow.

My position is that, yes, things ain't good in this country right now for a lot of people.

But I simply believe that the American dream lives within each and every one of us.

And if we just allow Trump and Trumpism to co-op that and say, well, it's all over, then you know, it will be.

Because we have to be able to believe there is still hope.

And there has to be a sense that we can go to the voting polls, which we hope is still the case in a year, year and a half.

and make our voices heard.

And we have to continue to help out our neighbors.

That's America is showing community.

And I see this all over Wisconsin.

I understand in people's homes, if you don't travel a lot, if you don't interact with other people, certainly if we just watch some of the news silos and social media, it gets depressing.

But I see great stories of human love all over the state.

Every month where I travel, that's what I'm talking about.

That's what I want to celebrate.

855-752-4842, 855-752-4842.

Rob, our friend Rob Wheat down in Monroe, Wisconsin, beautiful green county, texting in on WRCE.

Say, by the way, in the middle, what's worse, by the way, as well?

Firecrackers are sparklers.

What's worse?

Weedy says, firecrackers, sparklers only annoying to those in the immediate vicinity.

Firecrackers annoy a larger area, larger audience, especially later in the evening.

Oh, and did I say it already?

Get off my lawn.

Uh, Zommerz, what's worse, firecrackers or sparklers?

Uh, this, I'm going to walk through my thoughts on this.

Firecrackers, I feel like, are more boring because they just blow up.

There's no fun colors.

It's like, okay, that was loud, I guess.

Or, I don't know, they're just not exciting to me.

Sparklers, I haven't been injured by one, but I know they do.

They put the idea that fire is safe to put your hand right next to it in little kid's heads, and that's not great.

But at the same time...

They're still fun, and I haven't gotten hurt by it, so it must be fine.

So I'm going to say firecrackers are worse.

Firecrackers are worse.

All right.

I'll tell you mine to second.

First of our friend, Gordie Kopke, down in Oregon.

I'm going to cut him off because we were up against the clock there right before I went to a commercial.

I can't say the B word is taboo.

Gordie in Oregon says, I married the love of my life, Anna, on the 4th of July.

That is what I will celebrate.

Happy anniversary, Gordie and Ann.

It's a very lovely picture from the wedding.

And a dapper Gordy Kofke at that.

In red,

white, and blue tux.

Dressed in a red, white, and blue tux.

Happy anniversary, Gordy and Anna.

That is truly something to celebrate.

855-752-4842.

855-752-4842.

I'm gonna say, and this is based on, what was that text from Mark and the, was it Mark and the Sax talking about, talking about the legality of firecrackers in Wisconsin?

Yeah, anything that blows the ground, or blows up and or leaves the ground is not actually legal unless you have a permit, but we all know it's not hard to get a hold of those.

I believe the Statue of Limitations is over.

Let me tell you, I've shot off a lot of fireworks and firecrackers in my day.

But again, use your common sense.

Don't do it in a residential neighborhood.

This was out at the farm.

You know, there was nobody within a half a mile of us.

So I'd do it safely and use water and all that.

Of all the firecrackers I lit up on the farm, never had an injury.

I cannot say that about sparklers, which, you know, either.

You know someone laid down a fresh hot one and it with some old ones and he went to pick them up and You get burned or somebody, you know, it's tossed it around and hit your arm or your leg I've been I was injured more sparklers back in the day.

I never got injured with the firework So I'm gonna say Sparklers are

worse before we move on from the fireworks discussion the other day I think yesterday one of our engineers Chris Casper here

He showed me a meme about, you know, we teach our kids, you gotta stay away from fireworks.

Let the adults who are intoxicated handle it.

And he made the point that he wonders how many people going into this weekend don't realize it is their last day with all 10 fingers.

Boy, that's a

morbid

thought.

Yeah, just be careful the main the main

he said it jokingly the

main thing is do it to be careful

if you're too drunk to do it safely have someone else do it or just wait Yes, absolutely

eight five five seven five two four eight four two eight five five seven five two four eight four two Let's go down to Stoughton beautiful Stoughton, Wisconsin.

You're in Dane County CJ on the line CJ.

Thanks for holding what say you they wanted you what's worse?

What's worse firecrackers or sparklers?

I think firecrackers

Really?

I got a lot of good memories with my four little daughters with sparklers, and you're right.

None of them burned their hand.

Thank goodness.

But yeah, happy 249th birthday coming up.

Happy Independence Day.

Yeah, I agree.

I agree.

You know, but I gotta admit, I did hear you talk earlier, you know, about Todd the frivolous lawsuit against Trump.

It wasn't frivolous.

If you watch 60 Minutes, they edited Kamala Harris' interview to benefit her.

But it wasn't, hey, one quick correction.

It wasn't CJ.

It wasn't CBS suing Trump.

It was Trump suing CBS.

Yes, and he won.

And there's going

to be more law.

There was a settlement.

But, but number one, it was proven that it was edited like he would edit any other thing.

And there was nothing edited out to change the context of what the vice president said.

Wrong.

Wrong.

They're both out there.

All right.

Have a fight before the July CJ.

Thank you very much.

I mean, I mean, I'm not going to call the sky green.

It's blue.

That's just a fact.

So it was edited like any other television interview, and it was not edited to change the context of the vice president's comments.

That's just a fact.

60 Minutes has always been one to edit their stuff tightly, to get as much information packed in as they can,

but

maintain journalistic

integrity.

It's extraordinarily dangerous for the president of the United States to interfere in the First Amendment of freedom of the press.

And that's exactly what happened here.

And Trump did not, quote, unquote, win.

CBS, basically, Paramount Global, the parent company, agreed to mediation.

And in mediation, they agreed to settle.

And there is no apology as part of the settlement on behalf of CBS.

Trump just wanted the 60.

He just wanted the money.

It's always a grift with Trump.

Did you see?

He came out with a Trump perfume and cologne.

It has literally a golden Trump on top of it this week.

It's like the golden calf in the Bible, but yet all the fundamentalists on appraise him.

It also doesn't actually say anything about what it contains.

Like, legit perfumes will say, you know, they have a blend with these certain notes of this and smells like that.

And they're just like, oh, it's Trump, so you should love it.

If it smells like Trump, I don't want it.

Throw it back.

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

Dick at Madison on MDX.

Thanks for calling Dick.

Happy Independence Day.

What's up?

I'll back at you.

Can I comment real quick on the big bill?

Sure.

Go ahead.

Well, this morning I heard one of the talking heads and I totally agreed with him on MSNBC and he put it beautifully.

Is it not ironic that on the 60th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson declaring the war on poverty that 60 years later, it's become the war on the impoverished.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's sad, but true.

It's very true.

And it was so, I mean, everything about that bill.

And then supposedly there's news coming out now that Trump wasn't even aware of the cuts to Medicaid.

Yeah, I was listening to another program this morning.

They were talking about that.

And apparently what he meant was some of these House Republicans.

because he had said that, you know, well, it doesn't, it doesn't touch Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security and someone in this meeting, when he was trying to, uh, to whip their vote, he, they said, well, no, Mr. President, this, this is Medicaid and he seemed unaware of that.

So.

Which

proves again, where the man is.

I mean, he's in some alternative reality that's just, you know,

He's like chasing the fly ball in the outfield.

It hasn't even been hit yet.

That's pretty good.

I like that.

All right.

Thanks, Nick.

I always appreciate the call.

Have a safe and happy, happy fourth.

855-752-4842.

855-752-4842.

We'll be back with all new, what's worse, on Monday with a live show tomorrow.

Tomorrow is Amherst and I are going to be out shooting firecrackers.

Did they off tomorrow, but have no fear.

We're going to be in with a, we were pre-recorded some new material for Independence Day, taking a little look at history.

As we have become tradition on this show for three years now, we are going to play some patriotic music, some John Philip Susan music, country tune or two, and also brand new material in terms of brewers tickets.

Be listening tomorrow, an all new chance to win four club level seats for a Milwaukee Brewers game to be named later.

And I tell you what, these tickets, they're going to blow your socks off.

Blow your socks off

in a good way.

Club level seats, four of them up for grabs tomorrow.

Be listening between two and four will give you the word you can still text it in, even though we won't be here live.

So tune in for that alone.

Also going to look back at some time with our friend Kira Saban, a positivity and life psychologist.

Also, Trigvie Olsen and I on one of our trips to River Falls, River Falls days, and our time spent at the Timber Rattler Stadium up in Appleton.

So it should be a great show tomorrow.

Be listing then and then back with an all new live show on Monday.

I believe State Senator Kelder Royce, member of the joint finance committee, will be in on Monday to take a look back at the budget process as well.

So all that coming up on Monday.

All right, according to the Washington Post.

while entertaining the crowd at Target Center in Minneapolis during the WNBA Commissioner's Cup final between the Indiana Fever and the Minnesota Lynx.

I know I'm gonna pronounce the name wrong, so I'll say it.

I'll try.

Believe it's wrong, new.

The popular halftime show performer known by the stage name Red Panda suffered what her agent described as a severe fracture.

on her left wrist in a fall.

The injury occurred just after the acrobat believed to be in her 50s.

Began her act.

She's 50.

She can kick.

She can ride a unicycle.

She's 50.

That's from Saturday Night Live.

News agent Patrick Figley said Wednesday via email that the mishap was caused by a faulty left pedal on her unicycle, which he said had been damaged during transit.

Don't they go out don't they look at this before she goes out in the on the court?

Video of the incident showed new after climbing a ladder to sit on the reportedly seven and a half foot tall Unicycle peddling a few times and gesturing to the audience then tumbling to the court Medical personnel came out to check on new who walked to one end of the court before she was taken from the floor by a wheelchair according to figley

A pair of Link's staffers stayed with New during an 11-hour hospital visit in which she underwent a surgical procedure.

Well, best wishes, heartfelt wishes to Red Panda.

She says she's very grateful for the assistance she received, and she's going to recoup her.

She'll be back.

She's 50.

Red Panda.

Back to wrap up the show after this on the Civic Media Radio Network.

you

Welcome back to the Taliban show on the civic media radio network where it is now eight minutes before the hour of four o'clock at the top of the hour.

ABC, CBS or James Kelly news, depending upon which far great stations you're listening to a check of weather could be some storms later on this afternoon overnight across parts of Wisconsin.

Looks like a pretty good fourth of July for you and a hot but nice weekend as well.

Remember, hydrate or died rate, as they say.

So stay hydrated.

Coming up then after the news, weather and sports is going to be our friend, Matt Ross Child, who is sitting right.

I can see him.

He's preparing right through the glass right there.

He is filling in today for Maggie Dawn, hosting the Maggie Dawn show.

So stick around for Matt Ross Child.

It'll be a great time had by all.

And then Pete Schwabba and Nightlight from six until eight.

All right.

This is fantastic because a lot of Fridays, I know today is Thursday, but it's our Friday.

Uh, we have, uh, Peter, Peter Rapine, our friend Peter Rapine from eBombs world on to talk about the wild and wacky of human behavior.

So this is kind of a supplemental to, to that today because this is, this is real.

It really happened.

And I love every part of it.

All right.

So if you're traveling this weekend via, it's going to be hot.

All right.

And George Carlin once said some people just need practical advice.

It's gonna be hot.