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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Kratlow powered by Up North News.
Now, from our Lake WSOTA studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Kratlow.
Well, hey there, Wisconsin.
Good morning.
It is 6.06 on this Wednesday morning, July 30th, 2025.
It's another beautiful, although a bit smoky morning to have you here up north.
Live from Lake WSOTA from wherever you're spending your mornings listening across the Civic Media Radio Network.
or catching us on Facebook or YouTube or as a podcast on Spotify or Apple, maybe through the Civic Media app.
We appreciate you getting the middle of your week going right here.
I've got a question for you.
If the Brewers win this afternoon and sweep the Cubs, is it fair to now call this a time of unbridled enthusiasm?
Or are we all going to be so cynical as to go, well, it's just a matter of time, you know, before the collapse.
I choose to go with the former and producer Parker Olsen, I think, by the gleeful look on his face agrees with me because of the way the game ended last night.
He's just
You're itching to push that button there, aren't you?
I'm itching to
Well, I kind of gave that away.
We beat the Cubs.
But it was such an exciting way to do it.
Yes, we're starting right with this sports note because it is very exciting.
These kids, these kids, don't even know where these kids came from.
I did not know their names at the start of the season.
Andrew Vaughn, did you know Andrew Vaughn at the start of the season?
You might have been thinking about Greg Vaughn, or you might have been thinking about who's the one from Major League, the Charlie Sheen character, maybe that Vaughn.
But no, Andrew Vaughn was called up from the Miners on July 7th.
That was three weeks ago.
Since then, he has driven in 21 runs.
The only hitter with more RBIs is the Philly superstar Kyle Schwabber.
Last night, Vaughn had six
RBIs including four with one swing of the bat as the bases were loaded last night.
Who wrote this script?
I don't know, but I'm loving it.
Let us let us just enjoy
the ride.
Last night, the Brewers beat the Cubs 9-3, including that Grand Slam from Andrew Vaughn.
The Brewers have the best record in baseball, 20 games above 500, 63 and 43.
They've won 15 of their last 18 games, including that 11-game winning streak, and they now have a two-game lead over the Cubs in the National League Central Division.
And look at Parker, the smile is just plastered right on there.
It's good.
Good baseball is so fun.
It also put a big smile on my face last night when Cowan Ray on the mound for the Cubs did his best Justin Fields impression if you want to go with Justin Fields, because people were saying, you know?
Hey, or kale.
William.
Sorry.
I'm a couple of years off.
People were saying yesterday or the day before about how, uh, Miz was doing a Jordan Love impression when he air milled that throw to first.
Oh,
see, and that's, that's the thing.
Chicago fans always get over their skis on this stuff.
I
know.
Thank you, Luke, for the reminder.
Ricky Vaughn is, uh, is looking for, so can we call Andrew Wilde thing now?
in honor of the movie reference.
just saying.
Wild thing with a bat.
And he's been just incredible.
All right, the news is not all good.
And then we'll wrap things up with the Brewers here.
Jackson Shurio hit a lead off triple in the fifth inning, but I mean, he was running so hard to third.
He ended up with a right hamstring spasm.
So let's hope that's not something serious.
However, Brewers pitcher Quinn Priestor,
Again, when the season started, if you'd have told me Quinn Priester would be one of the big starting pitchers, I'd have said, huh?
That's a
Yeah.
He now has 10 wins on the season against only two losses.
He worked into the sixth inning, allowed eight hits, but only two runs.
So the Brewers go for the sweep in game three this afternoon.
Freddie Peralta starting for the Brewers.
And then they're off tomorrow, heading to Washington DC for a weekend series with the Nationals, then early next week in Atlanta, and then they're back home next week for the weekend against the New York Mets.
But you can see the Brewers go for that sweep against the Cubs.
Starting this afternoon, coverage begins at 12.35 on several of these civic media radio stations.
So Parker, that's the reason for the unbridled enthusiasm.
Other than that How are you otherwise?
Is there is there anything else does it matter at this point?
it
Yes,
with
Not a fresh show, well, not a live show today.
Not a
What does that mean down there at the radio station at the top of State Street near the Capitol?
at least an hour and a half.
You can start to hear things.
know.
It's a
Well, especially when I when I read what's on the show today and how I think how I start things, I started with murder.
So, yeah, so this will be a fun show.
Take a look around the radio station and and be wary.
Today is a big birthday for Medicare and for Medicaid.
It turns 60 years old.
And so the episode title for this hour is Happy 60th.
We're here to kill you.
Because a birthday like this should be a cause for celebration for the untold number of lives made better through healthcare security for the retired, the disabled, and other at-risk populations.
Instead, all those recipients are being called lazy, told to get off the couch, being lumped in with a minuscule number of cheats as an excuse
for conservatives to reach their long sought goal of removing the safety net and letting Americans return to an era of old age poverty and bankruptcy resulting from getting sick.
So happy birthday, Medicaid Medicare.
We'll talk more about that coming up later this hour.
We'll also have a couple of guests from the Chippewa Falls School District, the business manager and a school board member, about the problems being faced with declining enrollment in many school districts around Wisconsin.
Because look, whether it's demographics or increasingly the threat from taxpayer-funded private school vouchers, it's starting to peel kids away from our state's public schools.
And each kid who leaves means general state aid goes down a little bit, but expenses don't.
The lights still have to go on.
The school bus still has to get fueled up, whether there are 20 kids or 19 kids.
So we will talk in our homeroom segment about whether the current system is sustainable.
Our climate check has a weird little crossover thing going.
We normally talk to Melissa Baldoff on Wednesdays about climate issues.
We talked to former U.S.
Attorney Jim Santel on Friday about legal issues.
But Jim Santel comes over and visits us for climate check because.
So much of our climate discussion now is happening in the courts rather than in Congress.
We ask if is a big oil about to go the way of big tobacco and face an overdue courtroom reckoning for its role in putting our climate and all of human health in danger.
If that is the case, there's no shortage of courtrooms where that might happen.
We will talk with Jim Santel and Melissa Baldoff about a world court ruling.
as well as landmark lawsuits that are making progress this week in Hawaii and New York and Italy, among other places.
We'll check in with Civic Media reporter James Kelly with an update on stories across Northwest Wisconsin.
Jamie Kuska covers Southwest Wisconsin.
Earl Ingram checks in from Southeast Wisconsin.
We'll have Brittany Merleau's forecast as well.
Just so much ahead coming up today, including Brittany's forecast for the state, which
I'll tell you, it's, like I said, it's smoky.
There's going to be wildfire smoke spilling into the state once again today and tomorrow morning.
The stretch of dry weather, Brittany says, is just about here.
We've got one more slight chance of rain and showers to the south.
She says it'll be partly sunny north, cloudy in the south.
The rain and some storms expected by midday, heavy rain possible into this evening, again, mostly south.
Highs today in the upper 70s up north, low 70s in the south and east wind today at 10 to 15 miles an hour.
Rain gradually ending tonight, decreasing clouds, lows tonight in the upper 40s up north, mid 50s south and in northeast wind at 5 to 10.
And then yeah, a dry stretch of weather is on the way.
And that's going to, that's just going to feel so good to have.
Well,
I'm couching simply because of the wildfire smoke.
And it's never been a fun thing, but it is what it is.
We can't put out Canada just like blowing out a match.
So please be aware that if you have breathing issues, if you know of people who are elderly and maybe shouldn't be outside, maybe urge them to take a break from mowing the lawn that particular day, the grass will still be there tomorrow when the air quality settles down.
Looking at news stories that we want to follow today, and I just want to make comment on one here about Congressman Tom Tiffany.
And I didn't know if I wanted to believe that this was true.
I didn't want to jump on it.
I didn't want to speak prematurely.
When a couple of weeks back, some folks in the Wausau area who were demonstrating at Tom Tiffany's regional office said that the sprinklers had been turned on them again.
And I said, wait, I'm sorry again.
And they said, yeah, yeah, it seems like now whenever they go to, you know, hold up signs and let people know that Congressman Tiffany is, you know, cutting Medicaid is cutting their benefits is making life harder overall up north.
It seems like coincidentally at that particular office building, the sprinkler system goes on.
So there was a post yesterday or the day before that they were ready this time.
They appear to be dressed in street clothes or something.
And when the sprinklers came on, they shed their upper layer and instead had like rain slickers.
They pulled out umbrellas and they had signs about, you know, who is it really that's all wet?
Tom Tiffany trying to rain on their parade.
Now that's funny.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's unfortunate that they had to go through this experience to be prepared for what they faced most recently.
But let's not skip the larger issue here.
And that is that a member of Congress and or their staff are okay with the idea of when faced with people who are opposed to what they're doing and calling attention to it, would turn the sprinklers on intentionally.
Who does that?
And by the way, if you're if you're laughing at that if you're going that's that's funny No, it's not and it wouldn't be funny if it worked the other way either if you told me that Mark Pokan's office or Gwen Moore's office turned the sprinklers on the Americans for prosperity people Coming to demonstrate outside their office I'd be like no we don't do that.
That's a jerk move Or you know some other words I can't use on the radio
And in this era of entertainment where everything's got to have like a heel turn or a twist or whatever the case may be, it just seems that some old fuddy duddy, and in this case, it's going to be me, is going to say, you know, whatever our disagreements, we can be better than that.
We don't have to engage in that kind of, again, I'll just use the safe word, jerk-like behavior.
If we can't disagree civilly without trying to either hurt others or drench them as the case may be, then really how far have we fallen?
Let's just keep that in mind.
From the heart of America's Up North, live from Lake Wessota, thank you for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.
I'm Pat Krightlow.
This is 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.
All this is going to do is make the case for me to get an even bigger monitor.
And I've got like one of the biggest iMac monitors out there.
And yet I still have one window in front of the other window or this too many tabs are open.
And if I cover up that one enough and I can't see if my mute button's on or not, I'm going to miss it.
So it occurs to me.
And Sherry drives into work and she's going, oh, he's going to say it, doesn't he?
You know, if we could put like a 72-inch monitor up on the wall right in front of me on the desk here.
I mean, that'd be like a, we'd have a control center.
I could launch rockets from this
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
But you know, if I can, if I can, if I can claim it as a write-off.
You're saying?
I'm sure that will get
I'm sure that will not.
So maybe I'll just pay attention better to the windows.
As I was saying before I rudely interrupted myself with silence, you can sign up for our daily newsletters.
Head over to UpNorthNewsWI.com and click on subscribe in the top banner.
The newsletter this morning talks about the new wave of cooperation playing out between Trump's ICE and Wisconsin sheriffs.
which could have some consequences for Wisconsin communities and local budgets and frankly public trust in local law enforcement.
Also an article on how to spend the best possible weekend in Lake Geneva.
That and more as part of our daily newsletter.
Sign up for it at upnorthnewswi.com.
All right, maybe you've heard about this from, it was in yesterday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, but I wanted to pass it along because, well,
It's just not a surprise.
Last hour we were talking about bad behavior by Republicans and we've got another story about it as well.
Though first I should mention on the text line here, Mark and Prairie du Sac says, who does that?
Talking about turning the sprinklers on when somebody's demonstrating in front of your office.
It challenges one to be civil.
in the face of such incivility.
And Mark also notes that it's raining this morning in Prairie to Sac, so thank you.
Appreciate the update on that.
By the way, you can join us in the comment sections over in Facebook and YouTube.
Now, we're on the Up North News, Facebook and YouTube pages, and the Civic Media, Facebook and YouTube pages.
Put a comment there.
Make it a nice one.
Otherwise, I mean, I got the delete button right here.
It's very easy to do.
So again, avoid the jerk like behavior.
Jim and Brookfield on the text line using the Civic Media app.
The person who speaks of civility, common sense, and the ability to disagree is not the old fuddy duddy, but is the adult in the room.
Thank you, Jim.
So I have to.
Here's why I laugh at that.
When I was running for legislature back in 2006 and I was talking about the dysfunction in the legislature and I made the line that, you know, we need more grownups in the room.
Well ever since that time there had been a talk radio station in the Eau Claire area for many years and one of the co-hosts who I can now say who's not there anymore, but loved it to engage in again, here's that safe word jerk-like behavior and Love to you know mock my saying, you know that we needed adults in the room
whenever he disagreed with me and said, well, I thought he was going to be the adult in the room, meaning apparently I was only supposed to agree with him.
So whenever I hear about the adult in the room, it makes me laugh because I'm still here doing my thing and he is not.
Haukler's been without a local news talk station for several years now until we came along.
You're welcome.
So getting back to the jerk-like behavior from other politicians from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel yesterday comes this state assembly representative Bob Donovan was paying himself $850 a month from his campaign until he got caught this from investigative reporter Dan Bice at the Journal Sentinel.
And this is not a big surprise to people in Southeast Wisconsin, because Bob Donovan, sure, he's a state representative in the city of Greenfield, but he had been a candidate for mayor in Milwaukee.
He was a longtime alderman on the Milwaukee City Council.
And yet, when he was running for the assembly against Democratic candidate Lou Ann Byrd, he claimed he was living in Greenfield.
But he had homes in both Milwaukee and Greenfield.
After legislative boundary lines were redrawn last year when they got rid of the gerrymandered maps, Donovan said he would run in the newly formed 61st Assembly District.
But Donovan's Greenfield residence was outside the new district, so he got an apartment in the new district while keeping the old place.
Now again, technically there's nothing wrong with that.
But...
After defeating Lou Ann Byrd again this past November, he voted using the address of his new in-district department, BiceRights, while his wife used the old out-of-district residence to vote.
And then a month after the victory, Donovan began paying himself $850 a month from his campaign account for, quote, staff lodging at his old house.
In all, he paid himself just about $6,000 in the seven months after the election for staff lodging.
There was no staff living there near as Bice can see because the staffers already have their own places, one in the Conomwalk and one in Beaver Dam.
So it was fair to ask when Bob Donovan's asking people to donate to his campaign, was he instead saying donate to me so I can be a carpetbagger and live outside the district but run and win?
Well, Donovan never returned comments to the journal Sentinel, but last week they write he did reimburse his campaign just over $5,000 for what it had paid for for staff lodging.
He forgot to refund his campaign for the $850 back in December of 2024.
but as noted by a spokesperson for the State Democratic Party, before he got caught, Bob Donovan was focused on solving his personal affordable housing crisis by using campaign donor dollars to pay for an apartment while ignoring the actual crisis facing his constituents.
When we come back, we're going to talk about the 60th anniversary of Medicare Medicaid.
And instead of a celebration, it appears to be a near death watch after the Midwest Farm Report.
I'm Pac Rightlow, this is the Civic Media Radio Network.
We'll be talking about the 60th anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid in just a sec, but first, this is what you could call a bifurcated show.
We play on various levels at the same time.
You could call this the 3D chess of radio shows.
And what I mean by that is that all along the 10 stations that we're on and the Civic Media radio network across the state of Wisconsin,
a few times throughout the show.
Some of the local stations will break away and have a local news update, but some of us will continue to jibber-jabber here out of Chippewa Falls and talk about other issues.
And then we have the opportunity to play that back later the next day for folks who maybe didn't get to hear it the first time.
Maybe they were away or maybe there was a local update, which begs this question.
Hey, Pat, how can I always hear what you're doing on here?
Here's what you do.
You get us as a podcast as well.
Go to Spotify and subscribe, follow the program.
You can do it at Apple or any place else as well.
And that way, if you hear that we've talked to somebody and you missed it and you want to come back to it, very easy to do right there on your device.
So for example, we have a new segment at 7.50 on Tuesday mornings called Way Up North, where we have a rotating series of guests from Superior, Ashland, Bayfield, you know, the whole Lake Superior South Shore area.
And yesterday we talked to State Representative Angela Stroud, who is a freshman lawmaker going through her first state budget process.
And so here's part of our conversation about her impressions on the budget and why she was a no vote on it.
But first, I asked her to comment on the announcement that Governor Tony Evers would not be running for a third term next year.
You know, I really didn't know in the days leading up whether he was going to run or not.
People said, what's your gut feeling?
And I'm like,
I don't have one.
I'm really 50-50 on it.
Tony Evers is a true public servant.
He's not one who was in this for ego, not one who had a really hard time letting go of power, I think.
And so he did this to serve.
He really served well.
Two terms is a lot for a governor.
It's a really hard job.
He deserves to spend time with his family.
He's a truly decent person who I think just wants to go back and be a grandpa and a husband and live life and enjoy it.
So I'm really
happy for him that he gets to do that and grateful for his service.
And now we get into the mixed bag of politics, and that is to be thankful for his service.
But he has faced a fair share of criticism, as have others who are part of the state budget process, that it didn't turn out the way that perhaps it could have, depending on how people use their leverage or their negotiating skills or what have you.
And the
you know, you going through the state budget process for the first time.
Is it fair to say it wasn't the most positive experience now that you've seen how the sausage is made firsthand?
That is very fair to say.
This is not how you should run a state.
And, you know, there are people involved in these negotiations who I would refer to them as lions, but that's an insult to lions.
They're willing to do whatever it takes to retain power, hold on to power, get what they want.
And so, you know, I said Tony versus a truly decent person.
That's not true of many of the people he's negotiating with.
And so it's a really, really difficult thing to watch the budget process.
It is not good governance, things thrown in at the last minute that could never pass if they had to go through the regular legislative process.
It's disturbing and it's not how I hope we do things in the future.
But if it is how we do things, then Democrats need to get really savvy about making it work for us and making the best choices we possibly can in a context where we don't always control the rules.
Yeah, especially when you consider that the state budget bill, that's the one bill that must pass, you know, theoretically.
And so it gets so much shoved into it that, like you say, would never pass as a standalone measure.
For me, the most obvious of those would be the voucher school program.
In 30 years until two years ago, it never was up as a standalone bill.
It was always crammed into a budget bill, and that's how it got to be the behemoth that it is now.
So we have the model that we're going to have for a while yet, and it is a matter of, again, how you're using leverage and negotiations.
But now that that window is closed for this session, what are your priorities in terms of, you know, trailer bills, follow-up bills, or just, you know, separate legislation that you want to be working on?
There's so much.
I mean, there's big picture of stuff.
You know, a lot of what Democrats are doing right now is preparing to govern after the next election.
We know Robin Boss is not going to move any democratic idea forward in the assembly.
That's just a fact.
He's made that very clear.
And so what we're doing now is setting the groundwork for when dynamics change.
I mean, we'll keep trying.
There's no quit in assembly Democrats.
But and so for me, there are good governance issues to work on.
There are specific pieces of legislation around air quality and environmental issues.
There are specific legislation around the UW system.
And so.
I'm working on a range of things for me.
It's always district specific and you know, the 73rd has some problems to solve it and that's what I'm here for.
So there again with State Representative Angela Stroud talking to us on the program yesterday in our way up north segment.
Now let's turn our attention to the calendar and this Wednesday, July 30th.
which marks the 60th anniversary of when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Social Security Act of 1965 into law establishing Medicare and Medicaid.
And I think until recently, it was a huge percentage of people that did not really have a clear idea of the difference between Medicare and Medicaid.
They're just they sound like these bureaucratic words that get jumbled a lot.
And I think more recently, because of the threat to those programs,
People are becoming a bit more understanding of the differences between them.
Medicare.
That's America's promise to its workers that after a lifetime of work, you will have access to health care and not have to worry about illness or injury causing poverty in your old age.
66 million Americans are currently served by Medicare.
Medicaid is an American promise of compassion.
that those with disabilities will not have to beg on street corners for the health care they need, and that those who fall on tough times will have at least one option for stable, affordable health care when all of the other for-profit private insurance corporations would rather reject you or bleed you dry with jacked-up premiums.
Now there are those who say that the 71 million Americans on Medicaid, well that's too many.
I say, why isn't every American deserving of stable, affordable health care?
After all, they have figured it out in every other developed country.
And in many of those countries, they now have longer lifespans.
They have fewer moms and babies dying.
They have better education outcomes.
So to the MAGA folks who support the Trump big bloated boondoggle of a budget bill,
and it's $930 billion, almost a trillion dollars of upcoming cuts to Medicaid because they say too many folks are claiming low enough incomes to qualify.
I ask simply, why is that the case in America?
In the richest nation on earth, why aren't we doing more to address why so many Americans have incomes low enough to qualify
for Medicaid.
Why are people who work full-time jobs for some of America's biggest corporations still making so little in pay that they qualify for Medicaid, that our taxes subsidize their health care?
Why are the corporations and the billionaires behind them sticking us with the bill?
Walmart made $19 billion in profit last year.
and a big chunk of its workers make pay low enough to qualify that they're on Medicaid.
McDonald's made $8 billion in profit.
That's pure profit and yet has a big chunk of its workers making low enough wages to qualify for Medicaid.
Amazon, $59 billion and still
so many Amazon workers are on Medicaid coverage that we pay for, that they don't pay for, that they don't pay for health insurance that covers their workers.
How could that be?
Well, they make big campaign contributions and they've got people in Congress looking out for them carving out exemptions.
According to the Government Accountability Office, nearly half of adult Medicaid employees, or I'm sorry, nearly half of adult Medicaid enrollees, 48%,
And a little more than half of SNAP beneficiaries, 51%, to get what we used to call food stamps.
Okay, about half of adult Medicaid enrollees, about half of SNAP beneficiaries, work at least 35 hours a week.
And more than half of them work for large companies, meaning 100 or more employees.
So it's not that they're working for some tiny business that can't afford health insurance.
These companies can, they choose not to.
I mean,
Republicans cannot stop talking about their glee about adding work requirements to Medicaid and yet it's clear that lots of working Americans are already on Medicaid and the ones who aren't can't.
The people who love to talk about getting rid of red tape for corporations have become masters of putting red tape in the way of health care through work requirements and all kinds of other paperwork.
for children, for families, for the disabled, for the elderly, all while cutting red tape and taxes for the very wealthy.
So if indeed there are deadbeats, and I don't doubt that there are, but where's the enforcement?
Seriously, where?
We talked about this with Elon Musk and Doge as well.
It is a crime to defraud the government, to defraud the taxpayers.
Why
isn't this administration, frankly, doing more perp walks?
Instead of sending its U.S.
attorneys and federal prosecutors against its political enemies, why isn't it making a show of the alleged welfare queens that they say are out there?
Because paying for enforcement would mean increasing the budget to an agency.
Even if it's for the right thing, after all, look at the IRS.
What are they cutting there?
they're cutting enforcement so that people can continue at high income levels to cheat the system.
Whereas if you beefed up enforcement against tax cheats and if you beefed up enforcement against people who are defrauding Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP or anything else, you'd have a public that was grateful rather than fearful.
Look, we've had 60 years to make Medicaid stronger.
Instead,
It's about to get a lot weaker.
We've had 15 years to make the Affordable Care Act stronger.
Instead, it's about to get a lot weaker.
We've had 20 years to make Medicare Part D stronger.
And instead, prescription drug prices are about to get a lot higher.
And on top of all of that, on Medicare's side of the equation, there's Medicare Advantage.
something that we've talked about previously with those slick commercials often with celebrities that say choose our Medicare Advantage plan because we have so many more bells and whistles.
Medicare Advantage is a way for private for-profit insurance companies to get in on the action.
They promise all kinds of extra benefits but what you get instead are networks like the old HMOs and God forbid you try to go out of network because you'll
pay more or you get denied your coverage and you get more denials of coverage under Medicare access anyway.
I mean there are many who say that Medicare Advantage has turned out to be one big taxpayer scam and whom I disagree with them.
All told we are about to see 12 million Americans lose access to affordable health insurance either through cuts to Medicaid or the Affordable Care Act and it's not like that happens in a vacuum.
When they go without stable, affordable health care, when some of us go without that, the rest of us have to pay for that.
So happy birthday, Medicaid and Medicare.
Hopefully we can make you live up to your promise sometime in the near future if you're not killed off in the meantime.
Today's history lesson is next.
You're up north.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
Could we have timed that out any better?
Talking about Andrew Vaughn.
Isn't that great?
And referring to him as Wild Thing.
And that, by the way, that was a Luke Mathers thing.
He didn't know what was in today's history lesson when he suggested Wild Thing for Vaughn.
And yet, on this day in 1966, the Trogs hit number one.
The number one song in the country 59 years ago today was Wild Thing by the Trogs.
Welcome to today's history lesson for this Wednesday.
If it's Wednesday.
It's Melissa Kay, our friend from 97.5 WFHR1055WIRI in Wisconsin Rapids with her co-guest host, Leeloo, sitting somewhere off camera.
Melissa Kay, how are you?
I'm good.
Good morning.
It's good to see you.
Yeah,
good to see you
too.
How is Leeloo doing?
Leeloo's good.
I'm learning how to talk to them.
You're learning how to talk to Leeloo?
Yes.
With coons, right?
Yeah, yes, but I thought it was like But that's actually
that's a cat that would scare the bird now you see what's hiding in the cave
No, it's more like a hmm.
Hmm.
Hmm.
That's how you say hello Or I'm here.
Okay
Can we have an update on the pigeon pants?
Have they been modeled yet?
No.
We're waiting to make contact at their comfort level.
Yes.
Unless they trim their nails, which I might have to trim their nails very soon, and that could be traumatic for both of us.
I was going to say, that could be, yeah, that could put you in the category of Hampton the hamster.
You didn't, by chance, hear us talking about the hamster yesterday at the Chippewa Humane Association.
No, I did not.
Let me remind me to send a clip of that your way.
It's the best story I've ever heard.
It might be your next rescue.
You've rescued a pigeon.
You might be rescuing this hamster.
They would not be friends.
Don't put it in the same areas, Lee Lu.
That's all we're saying.
All right.
Back today's history lesson, then Melissa's going to tell us about some remotes coming up at WFHR.
But on this
day in
1974, President Nixon had to release subpoenaed White House recordings, secret recordings in the Oval Office after being ordered to do so by the U.S.
Supreme Court.
A little more than a week later, Nixon would have to resign.
On this day in 1966, we told you the number one single was Wild Thing.
The number one album was the Beatles album yesterday and today.
you're saying I'm not familiar with the yesterday and today album.
Well, there's a reason why.
The way they did Beatles albums in the U.S.
were not the same as the U.K.
and a lot of the albums on yesterday and today were actually already on the album's Help, Rubber Soul, and the forthcoming Revolver.
But that particular U.S.
Beatles album hit number one this day in 1966.
The song Enter Sandman was released this day in 1991 as a single serving as a preview of Metallica's forthcoming black album.
Was the bike album by any chance a part of your collection there, Melissa?
Heck, no.
I mean, I like it now, but no, then I would never have been able to listen to that.
Well, OK, so you weren't at that end of the spectrum.
Let's go to the complete opposite end and wish a happy 84th birthday to singer Paul Anka.
Wow, I just got
whiplash.
Yeah, my neck
hurts.
Happy birthday to Bud Selig, 91 years old today.
Kate Bush is 67 years old today.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is 78.
Lawrence Fishburne, 64.
Actress Lisa Kudrow is 62.
Vivica A. Fox is 61 today.
Terry Cruz is 57.
And one more birthday, Frank Stallone.
Do you remember Frank Stallone by chance?
Sylvester Stallone's brother?
He
too
was an actor and a singer and he had what
What you're about to hear here is the quintessential intro to an 80s song from birthday boy Frank Stallone.
Frank?
There we go.
Man, if this doesn't scream 1983, nothing will.
This rocks.
Oh my gosh.
This is from the 1983 film Staying Alive, the sequel to Saturday Night Fever, which makes today the day I learned or relearned that there was a sequel to Saturday Night Fever.
You've moved the camera over to Lelu.
What is their motion over
there?
Lelu, look at that.
I see them.
Yeah.
Frank Stallone, you've done it.
Apparently, Lelu is a fan of 1980s quintessential rock.
hair bands and leg warmers, which
makes sense.
They're
like pigeon pants.
Or Lelu is hungry.
Yes, could could go either way.
This is a big moment.
Although, again, the light is so harsh.
Oh, flapping the wings and everything.
Those
are happy.
Wow.
Those are very happy.
This is great.
I feel like Jane Goodall and I've finally seen one of the apes come out and, you know, smile or
something.
Leeloo has made her radio their radio debut.
Oh, Leeloo.
Good job, Leeloo.
Good job.
Well, there you go.
You now know you now know what does it
It's 80s music.
Jimmy Hoffa disappeared this day in 1975 from a parking lot of a restaurant in suburban Detroit never seen nor heard from again.
That's today's history lesson.
Let's find out what is happening in Wisconsin Rapids Radio.
What else are you up to over there,
Melissa?
Well, we do have a huge big remote this Saturday for the Rapids Rumble.
Rapids Car
Cruise.
Rapids Rumble.
Yeah.
Oh, it's a car cruise.
Okay.
I thought it was like a like the anchor fight in Anchorman or something like that.
It's where
the east meets the west at the river.
Okay, gotcha.
It used to be a thing, but yes.
No, it's a big, it's a big car cruise.
We'll be at the MSTC, the Midstate Technical College grounds, I believe is where we set up.
We'll be doing the live remote there.
There's food, there's tons of cars, and the cruise will leave at five PM, but it's an all day thing.
It starts at eight.
Wow.
All right.
It's a big deal.
Sounds like a big deal.
A lot of fun.
All right.
Well, Melissa and Lelou, such an exciting segment this was.
Thank you.
Go cue up some 80s music, maybe fame or splash dance or flash dance and we'll get an update next week.
Sounds good.
All right.
Thanks, Melissa.
Have a great day.
In our next hour, we'll be talking to a couple of folks from the Chippewa Falls School District about declining enrollment and what it's doing to budgets in school districts across Wisconsin.
I'm Pat Krightlow.
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