Democracy is fragile. Perhaps John Quincy Adams put it best in 1814 when he wrote, “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet, that did not commit suicide.”

A recent New York Times story revealed that Trump and a coalition of right-wing organizations are planning to vastly expand presidential power if voters return him to the White House in 2024. Dubbed Project 2025, the initiative would result in, among other things, a presidency that is no longer subject to the system of checks and balances inherent in our constitutional democracy, and allow Trump to bring independent federal agencies under presidential authority. Thursday’s 8 O’Clock Buzz host Tony Castañeda talks with former executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign Matt Rothschild about the people, organizations and money behind the authoritarian push coming from the right, and how their bizzare interpretation of the “unitary executive theory” could allow Trump to amass unprecedented power as president.  Additionally, Matt and Tony kvetch about the slow-moving Special Counsel’s January 6th investigation, and why Wisconsin’s fake electors have yet to be prosecuted.

Here’s how to contact state and local officials to demand that they prosecute Wisconsin’s false electors for potential violations of state law:

Ismael Ozanne – Dane County District Attorney

Phone: 608-266-4211

Josh Kaul – Wisconsin Attorney General

Phone 608-266-1221

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Today on the Tuesday 8:00 Buzz with Tara Wilhelmi and 1neofmani (Breyon Sommerville), talking about what’s going on in this world,  joined in the half with Poetic Ye (Damion Catledge).

Saturday (7/22) Afternoon Events:

Urban Triage Picnic https://urbantriage.org/about/events/annual-summer-kick-back 

ULGM Unity Picnic https://ulgm.org/events/july-22nd-2023-unity-picnic/

Listen in Madison at 89.9FM or online anywhere at wortfm.org.  Support your community radio with a donation online at wortfm.org!

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247 years ago, thirteen British colonies divorced themselves from Mother England to become what now number 50 supposedly United States.  While the borders are arbitrary, the political and sometimes cultural differences between states are real, to say nothing of the more nebulous ideas like a “state of mind” or a “state of being.”  Madison’s Broom Street Theater – which is not now, and never has been, on Broom Street – chose this moment to riff on the state of the States, with a series of short plays entitled “Our Home States.”  Joining us now by phone is Broom Street Theater Managing Director, Doug Reed.  Doug, welcome back to the show.  Also joining us is Broom Street Artistic Director Maria Dahlman.

Go to bstonline.org for more information, schedules and ticketing

Image by Andreas Glöckner from Pixabay

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The last few years have not been good for south central Wisconsin’s trees.  Between 2010 and 2017, Dane County lost an average of 12% of its overall tree canopy.  Some places have lost 38 percent of their tree canopy or more.  Emerald Ash Borer, climate change, and clearing for agriculture and development have all contributed to the loss.

With this year’s drought, an old enemy has re-emerged: the spongy moth caterpillar now threatens to defoliate large swaths of already-stressed trees and woodlands.  Lisa Johnson is a Horticulturist with University of Wisconsin-Madison Extension, Dane County, and she joins us now by phone.

For more information on tree care, go to treeboard.org

 

Image Credit RJA1988 for Pixabay

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Proving the axiom that one person’s weed is another’s salad, Robyn Griggs Lawrence, author of the Cannabis Kitchen Cookbook, speaks with Tony Castañeda of the Thursday 8 O’Clock Buzz in a rebroadcast of a 2018 interview.  Ms Griggs Lawrence provides some helpful tips for use in preparing dishes made with various forms of cannabis-based ingredients, and touches on the political divide over acceptance of its use.  Tune in and you’re ganja learn something.

Image by chuck herrera from Pixabay

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What do Abraham Lincoln, Robert LaFollette and Don Trump all have in common?  Shockingly, they were all members of the Republican Party at one time, whose politics were embraced by Wisconsin voters.  In a rebroadcast of an interview from 2016, Dan Kaufman, author of The Fall of Wisconsin, talks with Tony Castañeda on the Thursday 8 O’Clock Buzz about the conservative takeover of the progressive politics in Wisconsin.  Wisconsin voters have embraced the anti-slavery platform of Honest Abe, the progressive ideals of Fighting Bob, and in 2016 the xenophobic policies of Don Trump.  How did this happen?  Tune in to learn more.

Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash

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Today on the Tuesday 8:00 Buzz with Tara Wilhelmi and 1neofmani (Breyon Sommerville), Madison artist and entrepreneur Rob Dz joins to talk about Mad Lit and everything around town.  In the second half, Goddess Nacole and K.I.L.O aka SkitL’z join in to talk more about the Madison hip hop scene and the sold out Souls of Mischief show tonight at The Bur Oak!

More about Rob and his projects and music at https://robdz.rocks/about/

More about Greater Madison Music City at https://www.ourgmmc.org

Goddess Nacole on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goddessnacole/ 

K.I.L.O aka SkitL’z on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/kiloakaskitlz

Listen in Madison at 89.9FM or online anywhere at wortfm.org.  Support your community radio with a donation online at wortfm.org!

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Back in 1915, a young patent clerk named Albert Einstein published a paper he’d been working on, called the Theory of General Relativity.  Einstein’s paper talked about how massive objects could bend and distort the fabric of space and time, creating gravitational waves like the ripples emanating from a stone thrown into a pond.  It took scientists a hundred years for scientists to prove Einstein right, but in 2015, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory or LIGO directly observed gravitational waves created by the collision of two black holes. As a result of that collision, LIGO was able to observe unmistakable waves with peaks tens to hundreds of kilometers apart.  That observation, which one its chief researchers the Nobel Prize in physics, may have just been the warmup. On June 29, 2023, four different radio astronomy teams simultaneously observed what have been described as “monster” gravitational waves, with wavelengths measured in light years, sloshing through the entire fabric of the galaxy.   Scott Ransom is an astrophysicist with the U.S. National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, Virginia, and a senior member of NanoGrav, one of the four international teams that observed the gravity wave phenomenon.  Scott Ransom joins us now by phone.

 

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

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The Supreme Court of the United States continued to wreak havoc with legal precedent this month, handing down far-reaching decisions on affirmative action and the first amendment. In Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, a 6-3 majority on the court ruled that Harvard University’s and the University of North Carolina’s affirmative action programs designed to give African-American students greater opportunity violated what Chief Justice Roberts described as  our “colorblind constitution.”  The ruling effectively eliminates affirmative action admission programs in higher education, and likely in other venues as well.  Robert’s constitution may colorblind, but it is apparently not “sexual preference blind” as the court also ruled, also 6-3, in 303 Creative v. Elenis that a private website designer could legally discriminate against gay couples.  The rulings have elicited delight from political conservatives and scorn from progressives.  Joining us now to help make sense of it all is Anuj Desai, Volkman-Bascom Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

Image by Mark Thomas from Pixabay

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To the dismay of his Republican colleagues at the Wisconsin State Capitol, Governor Tony Evers used his powerful partial veto powers to greatly reduce the proposed tax cut for the state’s wealthiest residents during the 23-25 budget signing ceremony on Wednesday. This change, along with others that protect DEI positions at the UW and ensure ongoing public school funding increases, are fodder for the Thursday 8 O’Clock Buzz conversation between host Tony Castañeda and his guest Greta Neubauer, minority leader of the Wisconsin State Assembly representing the 66th District.

Photo courtesy of Connor Betts on Unsplash.

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