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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Critello, powered by Up North News.
Now, from our Lake Rosota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Critello.
Hello there.
Good morning.
It's 8.06.
It's Friday, it's June 20th.
I'm Pat Critello.
I've been awake since 3 a.m.
and it shows.
It shows.
Thanks, Parker.
More coffee.
More coffee.
Parker Olson's down in Madison and Studio A2.
Dr. Kristen Leierli is here.
meteorologist Brittany Merleau is here as well.
And yeah, it's just one of those, if, if Dan Schaefer hadn't already made us use the word discombobulated so much, I'd use it here anyway.
It's just a discombobulated kind of day.
And I don't have any, any great explanation for it.
We just are.
So coming up on the program this hour, well, the aforementioned Dr. Lirely is here.
Gonna tell us about some of her poor life choices, like biking in thunderstorms yesterday and biking in 100.
Biking in 100 degree heat index tomorrow.
So we'll question some of her decision making skills coming up in just a bit.
And then Mike Clemens will be along talking about sports and I'm gonna ask him about robot umpires.
Yeah, because I am after yesterday's Brewers Cubs game.
I am ready to make that switch right now.
There's some things you cannot do by robots.
OBGYN, where it comes to mind.
No robot delivering that baby.
Or forecasting the weather.
You can have your European model.
You can have your American model.
You can have your supermodel.
But no, you need a meteorologist to forecast these things.
And Brittany Merlot does that for us now.
Telling us where...
Who's getting rained in storms yet before the heat dome really starts to move in?
Yeah, so we've still got a little bit of rain this morning right now towards the Madison area that's moving its way towards Milwaukee.
It should just be some late little rain moving on out of here really quickly.
We'll see more and more sunshine as we go throughout the afternoon, especially down south.
I've got a ton of it up here right now up north and of course highs today, making it nice and comfortable upper 70s to mid 80s.
It's the perfect day for the first day of summer.
Happy summer solstice is the longest day of the year with the most
most sunlight out there and we don't have any rain moving in again until late late late tonight.
Basically overnight while we're sleeping again, more storms are supposed to fire up in northwest Wisconsin and work their way through the state.
Now they could just fizzle out in the northern half and nothing down south tomorrow.
But some of those models are continuing to drag that rain to the southern parts, which would linger until about noon or so tomorrow afternoon.
If this does happen, then this may cool our temperatures just a little bit from the 90s, but the 90s are still pushing in regardless.
Sunday, Monday, and probably still Saturday to be honest with you.
I think that rain will stay mostly north and we are looking at high, high winds possible 70 to 80 mile per hour in these storms and also hail risk to tiny chance for tornadoes.
So heads up again.
This will be overnight.
So not the perfect timing.
But afterwards, that heat moves in, it builds, that humidity becomes oppressive.
It is going to feel so sticky like Florida has just parked itself over Wisconsin.
And this is dangerous heat, especially because we haven't had this far north yet.
And I hope you're hydrated.
I hope you're ready for it.
Because if you're out there trying to enjoy the first weekend of summer, it could sneak up on you.
Please be safe out there and your pets too.
That pavement, that concrete is scorching as we go through this weekend.
They can burn their paws, check on neighbors, all of that.
Yeah, I mean, we're going to take out the pontoon for the first time here this weekend with a couple of the grandkids and yeah, definitely going to need that little canopy that you put up and give yourself some shady spots there.
And yes, fluids for everybody, including crazy bike riders like Dr. Lierly here.
How much did you bike yesterday?
30 just
how many just 30 how much you planning to bike tomorrow
as much as I can I have a promise to myself on the solstice that I spend as much time as I can outside so as soon as it dries up because it is raining right now I'm going directly outside to ride my bike pull weeds do whatever I can to enjoy all the sunlight
That's a great attitude.
All right, Brittany.
Thank you.
Have a wonderful
weekend
It is our free ticket Friday for Milwaukee Brewer's Tickets.
Fridays during the summertime, we give you a keyword and unlike the last contest where you've only got like an hour, here you've got the entire show to text in the keyword and the keyword today for this morning's show is fun, FUN.
So if you haven't done it yet, you still can get to that Civic Media app and put fun in as you text any one of the stations in the app.
On the text line, Tom from Jackson, Brittany, what a great radio voice.
Oh, I know.
That's why we brought her along.
That's
what I
was saying earlier.
Yeah, exactly.
So again,
fun is the keyword for the Brewers.
The tickets, by the way, are for next Friday's game against Colorado for tickets.
It's a statewide contest.
So go ahead and try to get yourself entered and try to get yourself some tickets for next Friday's game.
Then.
when Dr. Lirely is out riding that bike.
At some point, she's got a weekend radio show to share with you all as well.
So Dr. Lirely, what do we have on this weekend's show?
We are talking about the policy of Pride.
Of course, it's still Pride Month and there was a wonderful piece of policy that was introduced by Representative Ryan Spouty and Senator Chris Alfheim and others that we are going to dig into with Representative Spouty as well as candidate for State Senate, Sean Grorich.
So it's a really interesting perspective.
on pride from a legislative standpoint.
Pat, did you know that the LGBTQ caucus in the Wisconsin legislature now has 12 members?
They have doubled.
in size with the last election.
I do know and it's been very, very refreshing to see, you know, that increased level of diversity and it enables you to get even more of a spotlight shown in key areas.
And so, yeah, I'm very happy to see that many people representing.
And in really exciting news in my region, Northeast Wisconsin, of the five members of the legislature that we elected here, four of them.
are part of the community.
How crazy is that?
Is that what you think of when you think of Northeast Wisconsin?
It is not.
And that that is only a good indicator of things to come in terms of, you know, better representation for the entire Northeast Wisconsin community.
Because sometimes the representation is maybe lacking a bit.
Alicia puts up on YouTube.
Oh, the conversation I had, she puts conversation in quotation marks.
The conversation I had with state representative Ron Tussler yesterday about how useless attack
cut for seniors would be without hospitals.
She says interesting to say the least because we were talking earlier about that new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that says that if the big bloated boondoggle of a budget bill passes by Donald Trump, Wisconsin hospitals will face about $3 billion less in revenue over the course of the next decade and almost a billion more in uncompensated care.
And you know, that's that's going to hurt hospitals.
It's going to hurt things like
People that want to go to college talked about UW funding being cut by the Joint Finance Committee and Alicia says, oh, Ron Tesla told me funding the UW system harms the poor.
He says this to someone who has been poor for most of her life, Alicia writes.
So when I talk about better representation, I'm giving you a couple of great examples right there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is the other part of the the other folks who are from northeast wisconsin we've got you know we've got the gays and then we've got those guys so we got to do well when we were running in the last cycle the we had so many women and members of the community who were running we actually called ourselves the gals the gays
and a few good men, and that ended up being just Senator Jamie Wall.
So it was a really unique group of people on the Democratic side that were running against this really very insular, extreme group of Republicans on the right side who believe in exactly what Alicia just said.
Representative Tesla was saying, we hear that from, I mean, Chase Artwell, same story.
He's the guy who is preventing
new moms from getting postpartum Medicaid right now.
He's holding that postpartum Medicaid bill in his committee and refusing to let it go because he wants people to pay for insurance if they can't afford when they desperately need insurance so that they can get life-saving health care.
It is just, it's a total lack of investment in community and it's heartbreaking and it's our obligation to change it.
We're
going
to.
Yep, Eileen puts up on Facebook like the healthcare crisis we already have here in the Chippewa Valley isn't bad enough.
And again, you know, there's $15 million there that's about to expire.
It was put in the last budget two years ago.
And 10 days from now, if that's money is still not released by the Joint Finance Committee.
It just goes right back into the general fund.
And that's two years of the Chippewa Valley not being able to, you know, use funds that were appropriated to it.
And what really gets to me is not only the temper tantrum that Republicans are having, that Governor Evers used his line at Amvito, which is his right as a governor.
But they're saying, well, this money was just supposed to go to Eau Claire and Chippewa that lost hospitals.
And, you know, they're supposed to help the Chippewa Valley, but it's going to go to all these other counties.
Yeah, the Chippewa Valley is more than two counties.
It's an entire region that comes to the Chippewa Valley for their health care.
If you can help health care in the surrounding counties as well, in their districts, by the way, that's a good thing.
I mean, they are just clutching at straws anything to be an obstruction to Governor Evers.
That's a consistent pattern that we see on that side.
We see solutions presented and immediately we see barriers put up.
And all of these angles that just don't make sense.
And then they double down on the angles.
The last thing they seem to want is to actually help the constituents who elected them into public office, which is why we've got to pay attention.
We've got to have these conversations.
Most of the people around us are not paying attention.
They don't even know who their representatives are.
They don't know what's happening.
All they know is they're struggling to get by in the world.
So if we have conversations about issues with our neighbors and with our friends, we can get there.
But if we don't have these conversations because.
We're afraid of partisanship.
We're afraid of the I'm on the side and you're on that side business.
We're not going to be able to move this agenda forward.
And frankly, we're going to continue to head down this path that's not working for anybody.
Alicia writes, Shea Shortwell claims Medicaid harms hospitals because of compensation rates.
Hey, news alert, Mr. Shortwell, you can raise the rates.
And Wisconsin
has the lowest rates for pregnancy reimbursement.
Wisconsin has the lowest rates of the nation.
You can do something about that instead of just reaching for excuses.
Rob writes, thank you, Kristen, for all you do fighting for us, even though you have a busy schedule.
She does an excellent job looking out for small rural communities from Tom and Jackson.
I hope Kristen will mention the time she is on the air this weekend.
I have enjoyed listening to her.
Great advice and more, please.
Oh, thanks.
Yeah, we're on at 3pm on Saturday and Sunday and of course streaming on the Civic Media app.
And then the podcast.
Go to civicmedia.us.
You can find the podcast there or wherever you get your podcasts.
And all the previous episodes are there too.
We've got 10, 10 previous episodes.
Look at that.
10 episodes.
Look, you're on your way.
We're having so much fun.
And they're great conversations.
Every time I walk away from a taping, I think to myself, are people really going to enjoy that as much as I enjoy having that conversation with that person?
The last one with Pete Schwabba, Pete's just brilliant.
And he's so much fun.
And what a history.
Really?
See, I wouldn't have known if it were for your
conversation.
We're going to turn his film that he wrote director produced and starred in.
It's called The Godfather of Green Bay.
We're going to turn it into a cult classic this fall at the Tarleton Theater in Green Bay.
So when you come for a game, come to the Tarleton and we'll all do the Macarena together.
What?
Yeah, just watch the movie.
You'll know.
I guess I'm going to have to.
Parker looks so confused right now.
The Macarena?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, the movie is not new, but the Macarena is a big part of it.
It's just fun.
It's an engaging, fun movie that is very Wisconsin, and it just has all of those components to engage people.
Gotcha.
Okay.
A local update is coming up next.
For some of you, others will continue our conversation with Dr. Lyrely.
And when we're all back together after 8.30, we will talk to Mike Clemens and do a little sports heading into the weekend.
It's all followed by Matt and Air on Air coming up at nine o'clock.
We're heading to a commercial break, right, Parker?
Am I reading the clock right?
I was getting worried.
It felt
From the heart of America's Up North, live from Lake Wissoda, thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
We can sign up for our daily newsletter at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
In today's edition, Christina Laurie continues her series looking at the food networks, 25 iconic eats and drinks from America's Dairyland, focusing on the Friday Night Fish Fry.
Where was that place you took me for a fish fry in Green Bay when the state convention was there a couple years back?
Where did I take?
Oh, Marix.
Marix, that was it.
Yes.
Yeah.
So good.
Oh,
I know.
You know, every Friday, I'm like, which place?
Where do I go?
I usually end up going to Redwood because their fish is just so darn good.
But it's not.
I mean, the fish is great.
It's the company.
I am waiting to see if the, if our local watering hole is going to have the same fish fry.
The edge here on Lake Wissota had new ownership.
They closed up for six weeks, remodeled, reopened recently under the new name 1917 Lake Wissota because that's where the lake was made.
But oh, I loved their fish fry so much and I'm really hoping it continues, really hoping so.
It's so close.
Yes.
Okay, first I got to ask you because we talked about this on the radio yesterday or the day before and we've talked to you earlier about this these videos Yeah, Selena Heller was with us and she was doing a story about it out of Iowa that Iowa was mandating That kids had to watch these videos about human development that were shall we say not medically complete?
Is that the right way to describe it fantasy land?
It was misinformation.
Okay.
Yeah
It was straight up misinformation.
If you're basing your decisions on a video like the video that Selena is talking about, you're not getting all the information.
And yet it's been mandated anyway.
And somebody was criticizing that and Congressman Derek Van Orden, of course, took the time to criticize the person doing the criticizing and, you know, made some comment.
It's not even important what he said right now.
But in essence, he was endorsing.
misinformation being mandated by government to our kids instead of, you know, full and complete medically appropriate information.
Well, that tracks with Derek Van Orden.
Well, why does he even care?
He should just focus on his job and actually, you know, serving the people of Wisconsin
who elected him.
You mean all of those zero bills that he's passed so far?
Yes, exactly.
Yeah, I
know.
He's not effective, but he talks a lot and he's angry.
He's an angry man.
Oh,
he's an angry elf.
He really is.
He's an
angry
elf.
Boy, I would love to have more fun on a Friday here, but...
I pride myself on following a lot of the news.
I can't get to everything and it's rare when I get completely stumped.
But you mentioned this story and I had no idea out of Georgia that a woman who was brain dead was kept on life support by the state until her pregnancy was complete because of that state's abortion law.
I don't have any other word for that other than ghoulish.
That is true, and that's the perfect word to describe it.
Adriana Smith was a young mother with a seven-year-old, a nurse, who was nine weeks pregnant when she went in to the hospital for a headache.
She was given some medications and sent home.
She eventually had a stroke and was brain dead.
And they kept her alive on life support for months as an incubator.
to incubate this early pregnancy she delivered by c-section just three days ago and was allowed to die which was the wish of her family they did not agree with keeping her alive for this reason.
It's a very sad story there's no information right now about the condition of the baby but he was born at one pound and there's not a lot of evidence we don't have a lot of data about how these babies do but all signs
point to a poor outcome.
This is a really tragic story from all angles.
And I mean, look, money is the least of the concerns.
But of course, the expense of all this at a time when healthcare is tough for people to afford anyway.
And yet this is where the state felt the need to do put its resources.
But again, just the mandate over control of your body, even after your brain dead, I am just not seeing
the legal justification for this.
And it just, it just absolutely blows my mind that the state, and I mean that in the most big brother way, could do this with somebody close to me that I love.
I just, I can't even fathom that the state would be allowed to do
this.
And against family wishes.
Yeah.
Yeah, it is, it just,
defies the understanding, but this is the world that we're living in right now.
But these were the people that were always against big government, you know?
And now they are, in fact, as big government as it gets.
Yeah.
Which is just, we talked yesterday about all the other Orwellian aspects of this, of what's happening in Madison and Washington, D.C.
But
I guess all we can do is keep mentioning it because like you said there's people that don't know who their state rep is much less What they're doing and frankly what they're getting away with as well
And we have to keep talking about it because otherwise it becomes normalized You know like of course people can't get abortion care Of course people can't now get birth control of course people can't get health care.
None of those things are normal We all should have access to health care.
We all should be I think everybody could agree
We all want to make our own personal health care decisions for ourselves, right?
There's just times I wonder, and I'm really going off on a loop here, but if Florida hadn't had the butterfly ballot back in the year 2000, and if folks had actually recognized Donald Trump for what he is, that we would be coming off, you know, two terms with Al Gore, two terms with Barack Obama, or two terms with Hillary Clinton.
and where this country would be right now in terms of health care, peace, prosperity, education, natural resources, a fairer tax system.
There is, I just want to believe there's that alternative universe out there and I'm looking for a shuttle ticket.
So if you happen to see a way to get to that place where we're making better decisions.
I do, I
see the way, I see the way, but it's going to take a long slow process and it means that we have to keep having these conversations with each other.
And we will.
Thank you for having one with us today.
Be careful on your bike ride tomorrow.
Stay hydrated.
Lots of water.
All right.
Talk to you Monday.
Happy summer.
All right.
Take care.
We'll talk to Mike Clemens about sports on the way.
He's looking at the clock here.
Is it really coming up on 8 30?
Is the break at 8 30?
Yes.
I am really pretty.
You missed the commercial break once or twice.
It's OK.
It's OK.
10
go.
You sure?
OK.
Don't do that to me.
Oh, if I got some things to say about robot umpires coming up in just a bit here with Mike Clemens.
First, a reminder that the Free Ticket Friday keyword is fun.
F-U-N.
Fun.
Parker's just loving the fact that I had to reach way back.
find that three letter word.
It was like
it.
Wait a minute.
It's over here.
Fun.
Text that before the end of the show here and you will be in the running for four great seats to the Brewers game against Colorado club level seats next Friday.
If you are a winner here, you have five chances to win throughout the course of the day.
So keep it here on your favorite civic media station.
the Brewers will be taking on the twins here tonight.
Pre game starts at six thirty five.
We're going to get into that the the game against the Cubs and more with Mike Clemens who joins us as he always does on these Friday mornings.
But we'll start with the NBA finals since we're getting into a game seven situation which Mike I know that you know even if it's two small market teams I know the league is like you know as long as you give us seven games to squeeze out the revenue we'll be okay so
Good morning.
What can you tell us about game six?
Well, the Pacers had their backs to the wall, right?
Thunder up three games to two, but they took the series then to Indianapolis, and the Pacers just throttled them.
I mean, by the third quarter, they were up by 30 points.
Therese Halliburton, the kid from Oshkosh North High School, was able to pretty much sit out the fourth quarter.
He played 25 minutes.
Still managed to score 14 points and five a system.
Some key three pointers earlier in the game.
on that strained right calf muscle, which is an amazing example to get on the floor last night anyway.
So they had forced a game seven.
So game seven will be in Oklahoma City on Sunday night, tip off at seven o'clock coverage on ABC TV.
Now, the Thunder are 18 and two following a losses season.
They beat the Nuggets in game seven in the Western Conference Finals.
It's only the 20th game in seven
It's only the 20th time there's been a game seven in NBA finals history Only four times of that did the road team win game seven So you know the Pacers got the work cut out from the last game seven was nine years ago in 2016 when LeBron and the Cavaliers were down three games to one They came back to beat Golden State to win the Larry O'Brien trophy So some you know interesting facts and numbers heading into Sunday night's game
against the Thunder.
That's right.
I'd forgotten all about what LeBron did for Cleveland before taking his talents elsewhere to South Beach, right?
I remember that very well.
All right, let's get into the the Brewers and we'll get to the Twin Series in just a sec here but for because it was a day game and
I had the game on, my wife was off work yesterday, so we both kind of paid more attention in the ninth inning just because it was the ninth inning.
We weren't paying attention because we thought there were going to be all these terrible umpiring calls, but as we're watching pitch after pitch come in from Trevor McGill be called a ball when they were very clearly not, I mean, I was genuinely worried about Pat Murphy's health watching him bark from the dugout, were you?
Oh yeah, Orphe was going to get ejected and
I don't know, I mean it was, first to start with Abner Ribe, who came out in the eighth inning, and then there's Trevor McGill, the veteran closer for the Brewers, and you know, even the TV guys, and you know, these guys that work for the Brewers, both on TV and radio, they're, you know, they're pretty fair guys, but they were, when you looked at the replays, like you did, like if you saw the TV version of it, it's clearly in the zone, it's clearly in the box.
Baseball people call it the squeeze right they're putting the squeeze The closer somehow that strikes on gets a little bit smaller a little bit smaller.
Well, anyway McGill able to get through it get a 16th save of the season when he got Suzuki to hit into a double play retire the side and the game Brewers held on to win eight to seven I got some home runs from Reese Hoskins Caleb Durbin and Isaac Collins had his fourth hit home run and then did you see the the story about
Earlier in the game, Sal Freelick was up the bat, and he swung, and the bat came flying out of his hands and went, got stuck up in the net, the safety net, behind home plate, was hanging up there like about 15, 20 feet in the air.
And some young, you know, kind of yuppie looking dude with his polo shirt and pants and Ray-Ban glasses starts climbing the net like Spider-Man to retrieve that bat.
So
the ushers
are gathering around him as he comes down to get the bat like, okay, way to go.
And just the bat please.
You know, you're not gonna, this isn't gonna be bat day.
So they took a bat, the bat away from him.
And they went to Pharrelley.
Lou Pharrelley from Displanes, Illinois.
And after the game, Sal Freelick came out with a bat that he autographed and said, hey, nice climb.
And he gave his bat to this Cubs fan from Displanes.
So he was able to have that souvenir.
But that story is going national today
because the
pictures are so great.
Rightly so.
I was mentioning, I think, just last week about how old I am now.
I'm old enough to remember when Bat Day meant that every kid got a full-size Louisville slugger.
I still got my.
We moved all around the country when I was a kid.
So I got to see the Cleveland Indians with the hawk.
No, Ken Harrelson when he was on that team and the Sam, uh, what was the guy's name?
Sam McDowell was a fastball pitcher, Louis Tia, and all those guys.
And it was, you know, go Indians back day.
And yeah, you came home with this, with this.
Slugger bat.
It's pretty cool.
Yeah.
I mean, it got really loud.
I mean, this was at the old Metropolitan Stadium with the, you know, the metal floors and everybody's pounding their bat on the metal floor and it was crazy.
But I mean, that was... You imagined bat day today with these crowds.
No.
I definitely cannot.
And I do not want to.
I feel like I'm very lucky to have lived in a time when I did.
When bat day was a safe, positive thing.
Oh, well.
Yeah.
Different area.
So the Packers have a new president.
His name is Ed Policy, and you get to have a good long chat with the new press.
For Civic Media, we got a 15-minute sit-down with Ed Policy, and kind of a get-to-know-you.
And then, you know, we hit the roll and record on the recorder and play the interview, or record the interview, and so I said, you know, so Ed, see, Ed Policy, his dad, Carmen Policy,
was the president of the 49ers for all those years in the 80s and early 90s when they were winning Super Bowls, right?
For the DeBartolo family.
And they're from Ohio.
They're from Youngstown, Ohio, so they kind of grew up Browns fans.
And then later, Carmen was sort of like the Bud Felix of Cleveland.
When the Browns left and went to Baltimore to become the Ravens, it was Carmen policy that got some guys together and brought back the Cleveland Browns in the late 90s and early 2000s.
So this is what the atmosphere that had policy your new packer CEO and president grew up around.
He got a law degree.
Then he eventually became the commissioner of the arena football league before getting a job with the NFL for a couple years and then getting hired by the Packers.
And I said, so what made you decide to go to Green Bay?
And he said, you know, after working in the league for a couple of years, there's about five franchises I was interested in.
And this was certainly, you know, near the top of the list.
So he gets the job 12 years ago and he becomes quietly.
you know, Mark Murphy's right hand man.
And about five years ago, someone said to me, Mike, watch Ed policy.
He's the next guy.
Oh, really?
And then you see that, you know, Mark is the guy with the vision and the spokesperson and hiring, you know, the people in the office and sort of let them do their jobs.
The guy with the vision, but Ed policies, the guy was right in the contract for all those buildings for title town, right?
For the building of the new football operations where they moved
the GM, the head coach, all in the same building with the scouts, the assistant coaches and the players.
They're renovating the locker room this summer.
And then the NFL draft, they pulled that all off.
And so this is now, is the passing of the baton and Ed takes over.
So I say, so what's the next thing?
What's the next big thing for you in your first year as the Packers president?
He says, win football games, stay in Green Bay and always strengthen the community.
Well, that got out there.
I mean, social media was staying in Green Bay.
Well, you know, we're shareholders, we're the owners of the team.
And I said to people, you know, if you're the mayor of your town, one of the things you learn is you're not necessarily going to fight crime or help education.
It's like keeping the drinking water clean, you know?
I mean, there's a, and so the bottom line for this guy is I've got to make enough revenue to keep the team in Green Bay.
Because I'm in a league where who knows there could be the next 35 year old crazy billionaire that says why are we still in Green Bay?
If we want to you know, roam the world Maybe we can make them the Germany Packers the G could stand for Germany.
We put them in Berlin or Munich or something There's crazier things can happen, but you know, I could sell the Lakers for $10 billion.
Oh, yeah I think the other the other underlying thing to this pad is this remember that story about six months ago that the Packers were kind of going back and forth
with the city of Green Bay about the lease, that kind of thing, and it got kind of tabled because it's down to like 2030.
I think this is, Ed policy, your new president, firing the salvo like, you know, we'd like, we need to take care of this lease agreement, people, hello, so that we can assure that the team is going to be here forever in Green Bay.
I think that's what he was doing.
I would think so.
I think that it's, you know, it's a little rhetorical.
It's a little political, you know, negotiating and obviously Ed policy knows a thing or two about negotiating.
But even though I think we're all optimists about how this ultimately goes down, I think that we could still go without the heart palpitations that come in when we start talking like this, you know.
Well, and I think he also when he says the first thing is like winning games, it's like, well, if you if you start really stinking,
like the Oakland A's, you know, or the teams end up getting moved, you know, or the, like the Oakland Raiders.
That's, you know, those are the kinds of things that you need to think of because the dominoes start to fall.
Here's the other thing.
What's this guy going to really be like?
Let me remind the jury that when Mark Murphy came in, he took over an operation that was run by the wonderful Bob Harlan, where the whole, you know, everybody in the front office was from Depeer, Green Bay, you know,
The sons and daughters of the the folks that ran the paper mills, you know the and he reported to the board of directors Mark Murphy came in and suddenly those people were being replaced by You know some woman who was the marketing director from Coors from Denver and instead of the peer and and so he kind of changed the front office gradually that way so he's bringing in all these ideas from around the country and And so there was a lot of change there.
What's that policy going to be like?
Well, you know, he was asked
Hey, you know, the contracts for Matt LaFleur and your GM, Brian Goody, are they going to get renewed?
No, not this year.
They've both got two years left on their deals, and we'll revisit this next year.
So that means 2025 is a proven year for Goody and LaFleur, right,
with their new
boss.
boy, this guy's, he's taking no prisoners right from the get go here.
It's like, I'm, I'm the one in charge now.
I got the regime change, man.
It's regime change.
It really is.
Um, I got a little over a minute left.
So I, I want to close where, where I kind of mentioned at the very start of the segment on robot umpires.
And I know they're using these electronic eyes, uh, to some degree in, in minor league baseball and
You know, again, I've seen enough of Angel Hernandez and others over the years.
I'm ready for it tomorrow.
Do you hear if it's going well in the minor leagues?
Do you think we'll see something like that in the major someday?
I haven't because, you know, Murph doesn't want to get much into that.
You know, I mean, after he settled a reporter has Murphy, where those calls at the end of the game kind of erratic is erratic.
I didn't say that.
You said that.
He said that, right?
I didn't say that.
You didn't hear me say that.
I mean, that's how great Murphy is.
He said, you know, listen, there's no point of arguing balls and strikes with these guys.
They're trying to do their best.
And sometimes they get off the road and we've got to find other ways to win games.
But, you know, he said the same thing about fighting.
The Cardinals and the Brewers were kind of get into it.
You know, shouting match the other night.
He goes, I don't get into that.
That's between the players, you know, and then that they want to beat each other.
And he said, if it gets out of hand,
Let the iron parts take care of it.
So Murphy's been there a long time.
He's got this stuff politically figured out in terms of is it coming to baseball?
Well, you know, that's going to be up to the commissioner and I'm sure he's getting a phone call from the Brewers after yesterday's game.
It wouldn't doubt it.
Mike Clemens, thank you so much.
Have a great weekend.
You too, Pat.
Thank you,
Bill.
All right.
Take care.
All right.
Let's pause here.
A local update is going to be next for some of you.
And it's all followed, of course, by Matt Naranair.
For the rest of you, we'll have some final notes next here on this morning powered by UpMorning News on the Civic Media Radio Network.
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We have a busy show for you first thing Monday morning after you come back from this hot, hot weekend.
We'll have State Representative Francesca Hahn talking about Republicans playing games with the state budget to this point.
We'll talk to John and Gordy from our Civic Media Station in Madison.
We'll have Dr. Kristen Lerly back here, Selena Heller, Jimmy Cusca and Jane Matt Narrow be joining us all on Monday.
Got a lot for you planned.
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And you can listen to individual episodes over at the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
Let me give some of the final words of the week over to Trig Vielsen.
Trig V appears on Todd Alba's show every Wednesday afternoon around two o'clock.
I joined in for a few minutes myself here.
And Trig V has worked around the world for an organization that helps to promote and foster democracy, which is something we used to think was just quaint, you know, how nice that he does that in these in these far flung countries that, you know, might never have democracy.
And we because we took ours for granted.
Boy, have we learned over the past 10 years now not to take our democracy for granted.
TrigVee has a sub-stack now, so if you head over there, he's got a newsletter series called Searching for Hope from TrigVee Olson, and his latest one is titled, What Democracy is Really About?
Searching for Hope, and he writes, people often discuss democracy as if it were a system.
a structure, a form of government.
But after two decades working with activists in Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Burma and beyond, I'll tell you this.
Democracy is not a system.
It's a mindset.
It's about trusting your fellow citizens enough to share power with them even when you disagree, especially when you disagree.
It's about believing that a win-win is possible.
and that we are better off solving problems together than trying to impose our will on each other.
That's not a talking point, Trig V writes.
That's what kept people going when we were training democracy activists in a coal department in Minsk while the KGB filmed us through the window.
It's what I saw in Tbilisi when young people stood in the streets demanding fairness and dignity from a government that didn't want to give it to them.
And it's what I saw in Burma, where people had lived through a brutal military rule, and they still showed up, organized, and risked everything to cast a ballot.
Then there was Nigeria, training pro-democracy organizers.
One older man looked at me and said with complete sincerity,
that he didn't think Americans could ever truly understand what it means to be able to vote in Nigeria because he said your elections are perfect.
Well, that was 1999.
And a year later, Trigview writes, I thought often of him watching what was unfolding back home in Florida during the 2000 recount.
I kept wondering if he was watching too.
Even today, perhaps even more so today, I wonder what he thinks of our
imperfections.
Trigvie says, because democracy isn't perfect, it never has been.
It's messy.
It breaks down.
It disappoints.
But it's still the only system I've seen that reflects all of who we are.
Not just the worst of one of us, but the best and worst of all of us.
Democracy is not about institutions.
It's about dignity.
It's about the belief that your voice matters, that your neighbor's voice matters, that power should be earned and not inherited, that truth matters, that change is possible.
And yes, that losing is a part of it.
In autocracies, there is no losing, there is only submission.
The side that loses doesn't just go home disappointed.
They go home silent or worse.
In a democracy, you fight side by side today so you can disagree tomorrow.
It is fragile, it is hard, it is slow, but it is the only system I've ever seen that allows people to be fully human and fully free.
Senator John McCain used to talk about a cause greater than self.
And that's what democracy demands of us, and it's what it gives us in return.
Not comfort, not certainty, but meaning.
So when we talk about what's at stake in America right now, don't think about it as left versus right, Trig V writes.
Think about it as dignity versus domination.
That's the battle we're in, and that's why we must win it.
Democracy is not guaranteed.
However, it is still possible because it thrives wherever people are brave enough to believe in one another.
And he adds three things that you can do today.
Ask someone what democracy means to them.
And listen, really listen.
Tell someone why you believe in it, especially someone who appears to have given up.
And third, support local elections.
because that's where dignity gets defended first.
And I love that because one of the favorite t-shirts that I saw for sale was by our friends at Motherhood for Good.
And it's a shirt and it simply says, support local elections.
Because if we don't have good people willing to serve,
at the grassroots level who could then maybe serve in a legislature, serve in Congress or in other high places, but if they're not willing to serve at the local level to put themselves up in front of their neighbors, well then the people who are willing to fill that gap may not necessarily have our best interests at heart.
Goodness knows we're seeing that now where we're looking at Medicaid and all kinds of essential services be taken away, not as some kind of a cost savings, but simply to give
to the others who would support our ongoing move toward autocracy.
It's no fun to try to stop it in between elections, but it can be stopped at the ballot box, and that's what we need to keep in mind, most of all.
My thanks to today's guest, Kristen Lyrely, Catherine Hempstead, Mike Clemens, Jonas Pezzito, Brittany Merleau, of course, Parker Olson, and all of you for being here today.
I'm Pat Critello, founding editor of Up North News,
The Wisconsin Home for Courier, a pro-democracy newsroom building a more informed, engaged, and representative of America.
Have a great weekend.
We'll see you Monday morning up north.
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