Recombobulating on the radio (Week of Sept. 7-13)

Featuring appearances on "Matenaer On Air," "The Todd Allbaugh Show" and more.

Sep 13, 2025

The Recombobulation Area is a 19-time Milwaukee Press Club award-winning opinion column and online publication founded by longtime Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer. The Recombobulation Area is now part of Civic Media.

Happy weekend, recombobulators!

I am sitting here writing this from The Terrace at Memorial Union in Madison, and it sure is a beautiful day in a beautiful city, a nice relief after a long week. I’m in town for CapTimes Idea Fest, where Civic Media is broadcasting some of the week’s evening coverage — I helped out with a bit of our live broadcast of a conversation with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who spoke in conversation with the CapTimes’ John Nichols (listen here), and shared an interesting reflection on the reactions to the assassinations of Charlie Kirk, and of Minnesota Assembly Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark.

Gov. Tim Walz speaks with journalist John Nichols at CapTimes Idea Fest in Madison. Photo by Dan Shafer.

“The outrage of this week, the family, and everything that went on, and you can disagree with the policies, but it was the response of some people afterwards — the people who couldn’t even call the children of Melissa (Hortman), couldn’t even do that,” said Walz. “I don’t understand how you can separate that. I don’t understand how you can not see the children that lost a father this week, and the children who lost a father and mother in June, how in your mind can you separate the humanity in that based on the politics?”

I thought that was an interesting comment, considering what he’s experienced involving Hortman’s assassination earlier this year.

Walz also made what seemed like a bit of news, too, strongly suggesting that he will be running for a third term as governor of Minnesota, saying, “It sure doesn’t seem like now is the time to leave the field, with all that’s going on.”

See more of CapTimes’ coverage of the speech here.

Today, I’ll be checking out speeches and conversations today, including those with Ben Wikler and with the event’s final speaker, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. It’ll be interesting to see what they each have to say in this moment, too.

On to the roundup…

We’ll start with Friday, where I joined Todd Allbaugh in studio in Madison for “The Todd Allbaugh Show” (2-4pm, every weekday on Civic Media) to talk about the Charlie Kirk assassination and some of the initial reports surrounding the shooter, and about some of the reactions from political leaders in Wisconsin, and how the incendiary language expressed by Republican Congressman Derrick Van Orden has been the exception, more than the norm.

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Because I was in Madison on Friday, on Thursday, I joined Greg Bach on “Matenaer On Air” (Jane is on vacation), where we discussed the Kirk assassination, reactions and more.

Also on Thursday, I joined my friend Patti Vasquez on Heartland Signal / WCPT 820 in Chicago for “Driving it Home,” to talk about the latest in Wisconsin politics.

On Tuesday, I joined “Mornings with Pat Kreitlow” (6-9am every weekday on the Civic Media network) to talk about the launch of Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley’s campaign for governor, and some of the latest news coming from the Wisconsin State Legislature and more.

And in case you missed it, we published two terrific columns here at The Recombobulation Area this week, from contributors Angela Lang and Emily Tseffos. Read both columns here.