La Crosse Talk PM WIZM

Talked about a lot of things with Wisconsin Farmers Union president and organic dairy farmer, Darin Von Ruden. The conversation ranged from the fight in Congress to get a farm bill passed, which should have been done last weekend, to how much money goes to the farmer when we buy products off the store shelves. The farm bill talk ranged from milk pricing going back to 1937 — can you say $10 gallons of milk — to having a freshman member of the US House in Derrick Van Orden on the ag committee, and where the priorities in Congress lie — as the House Speaker was just ousted. We also hit on the monopolization of parts of the farming industry and the incentives to using land for farming vs. solar.

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UW-La Crosse baseball coach Chris Schwarz joined to talk about the MLB debut of Caleb Boushley. The 29-year-old Boushley, a Hortonville, Wis., native, played for Schwarz back from 2015-2017. This is the second-consecutive year Schwarz has seen one of his former players get to the Majors. Last year, it was Holmen native Taylor Kohlwey. Boushley debuted for the Brewers last Friday, entering in the eighth inning with a one-run lead against the Cubs. Schwarz tells the story, as he and about 400 other friends and family of Boushley's, including "the whole town of Hortonville," were in the stands. Before that conversation, though, we had to rant about Giannis Antetokounmpo living over a decade in Wisconsin and never having a bratwurst, plus Katrina Shankland enters the race for US House in the 3rd District, to unseat Republican Derrick Van Orden.

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It's committee week in the city of La Crosse, and council member Chris Woodard joined for a bit to talk about some agenda items he's going to be seeing, including a delay request on construction of the old Kmart on State Road. We also discussed a mental health clinic wanting to open on Jackson Street. After that, did a Rick's comment on Scott's Comment about Oktoberfest and then talked about some teaching bills that the Wisconsin state Legislature could look at.

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La Crosse County administrator Jane Klekamp in studio to talk about the inner workings of county government, the $19-million Hillview project and the upcoming 2024 budget. The conversation hovering around government came up a couple of different times, including how the county and the city work and some of the work the county board does in bringing things to the table. One of those things is the Hillview Healthcare Center remake, which passed the board. We talk about how that came to be and what Hillview might look like when its all done. We also hit on the 2024 budget and how that's shaping up

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A couple of Oktoberfest legends, Dave Ring, Brad Quarberg, joined to talk about the year La Crosse's Oktoberfest didn't sell beer. Yes, that was a thing, and it was part of a Top 5 list Quarberg deemed, "Five things you didn't know about La Crosse's Oktoberfest." Others included the time the Oktoberfest medallion was held hostage and that year there wasn't a Festmaster. Ring was the 2013 Festmaster, while Quarberg is our unofficial Oktoberfest historian and was the 2016 parade marshal. He was chief editor of the book The Fest of Times — a history of La Crosse Oktoberfest’s first 50 years.

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Covered a lot of topics with Wisconsin state Sen. Brad Pfaff, from banning politicians from parades to a bill he introduced capping insulin costs at $35 in Wisconsin. We also hit some of the layers to Republicans looking to impeach both a state Supreme Court justice that was just elected to the Wisconsin Election Commission administrator. After that, we hit on solar farms vs farmland in Wisconsin, and whether he agrees with the $700 million for Milwaukee Brewers stadium upgrades.

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Peggy Manson joined La Crosse Talk PM on Thursday, just a few hours after she, her daughter and their dog Roscoe found the Oktoberfest medallion. It's something of a family tradition for them, and the second time doing so in the past 16 years.

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Peggy Manson kicks off the show, leaking to the world just how you find an Oktoberfest medallion. After that, La Crosse County and 3rd CD Democratic Party chair William Garcia on everything from Madison to DC in politics.

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Tara Johnson, candidate for US House of Representatives here in Wisconsin’s 3rd District, joined La Crosse Talk PM on Wednesday to discuss, of course, why she’s running. We also may have come up with a campaign slogan, plus we talked choice and some local issues to take to DC. A big part of the conversation was about healthcare and, in there, we may have the pitch every candidate should be using on the issue: “You Don’t Have To Think About It Healthcare.” Johnson, the first-ever female chair of the La Crosse County Board, told a personal story about how her family was struck with medical emergencies, and how someone in a different health insurance position may not have had the same outcome. We also talked about choice, where she told another story how that’s affected her and her family, as overturning Roe v Wade sent Wisconsin back to the 1800s, where a 174-year-old abortion ban law went back into effect until just recently. Before we got into all that, though, we did spend some time on the state of the House right now and how local issues here could and should be tackled in D.C. Along with being the first-ever board chair — doing that nine years — Johnson served on the La Crosse County Board for 20 years. Before that, she was the executive director at the United Way in La Crosse. Johnson is one of three Democrats, so far, running in Wisconsin's 3rd CD, along with Rebecca Cooke and Aaron Nytes.  The seat is currently held by first-term Republican Derrick Van Orden.

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Wisconsin Assembly Rep. Steve Doyle joins, tells a very interesting story from last week’s voting session. We also talked about the state of politics in Madison, the game of impeachment and rigged maps. Doyle began the show talking about last Thursday’s voting session, where he had COVID and Republicans almost had an Assembly supermajority, which would allow them to veto override just about everything Gov. Tony Evers has managed to accomplish. This is where the harmonic "groan," comes into play. After that, we discussed the continuing fight over a $4 billion budget surplus and how nobody is legitimately negotiating. Ended the show discussing the multifaceted game of impeaching a newly-elected state Supreme Court justice, using bias retired justices to justify that action and throwing an entire new system of drawing maps into the mix, with no public hearings and 48 hours for the Assembly to vote on it.

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