The One-Handed Economist (Hour 3)

Live, across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Kratlow powered by Up North News.

Now, for my Lake WSOTA studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Kratlow.

Well, hey there, Wisconsin.

Good morning.

It is 606 on this Thursday morning, September 4th, 2025.

Another beautiful morning to have you here up north, chilly, cold, but still beautiful to be here live from Lake Wissota from wherever you're spending your mornings, listening across the Civic Media Radio Network, or listening to us or watching us on all the other various platforms, Facebook, YouTube, podcast, app, website, you name it.

We appreciate you being here today.

I got a question for you.

Yesterday, the question was, what would you do with a billion dollars?

Today's question is, what would you do with $2 billion?

Because it looks like already with no winner last night, the jackpot for Saturday night's Powerball drawing is going to be at least $1.7 billion.

Closing in on some of the biggest jackpots ever, the largest of which was $2 billion.

just about two and a half years ago.

And apparently that that could be you yet.

So what would you do with almost $2 billion?

Let us know in the comment sections or use that text feature on the Civic Media app to let us know what you would be doing.

On the program today, Congress is back in session.

And so we will visit live with Congressman Mark Buchan about the full range of issues, all of which have a bit of a deja vu feel to them because we're still talking about the Epstein files.

because there's been a noticeable lack of transparency from a certain president.

We'll be talking about another government shutdown showdown, because yeah, that's still a thing, and much more with Congressman Mark Polkan coming up at 7.35 this morning.

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley came up north last week to see one of the ways that Wisconsin can address the ongoing problem of affordable housing.

We'll hear some of the comments that he made about his likely run for governor and when he expects to make that formal announcement.

Also states are starting to go it alone when offering vaccine and other public health guidelines now that the US Department of Health and Human Services is working in complete opposite of what you should do if you stand for health and human services.

In economic news, it is the worst of both worlds.

Inflation remains an issue, which is why you might want to hike interest rates, but the job market is softening, which is why you might want to cut interest rates.

In other words, Trump stagflation with a side order of political pressure on what's supposed to be an independent Federal Reserve Board.

We'll discuss that dilemma with Sean O'Malley coming up this morning.

And we'll ask Joseph Eke about the possibility that the president will send military troops to Milwaukee for no other reason than he can as political stunts go.

All of that is coming up.

And of course, if you can't hang around for the full program, but some of this sounds interesting to you, you should get over to Spotify and you should follow this show.

Again, you don't have to listen to it every day, but you'll always have the most recent episodes right there, where you can just use your little finger, move up and down the screen to pick the part that you want to listen to, the guests that you want to hear from, or the part you want to hear again.

Do that at Spotify, Apple, wherever you get your podcasts, and take us along with you.

Otherwise, there's the menu of what's coming up for today.

The state forecast for meteorologists, Brittany Merleau, it's just cold.

Frost advisories are out on seasonably cold air.

It's taking over as the winds whip and another system is quickly going to clip us tonight.

It is 36 degrees right now in Black River Falls in Solon Springs and over in Accanto as well.

Today's forecast for the state partly cloudy and unseasonably cool.

Highs in the mid 50s up north, low 60s to the south.

a west wind at 15 to 25 miles an hour later today.

For tonight, widespread rain, maybe some thunder.

Lowes will be around 40 up north, 50 to the south, and a south wind at 10 to 15 miles an hour.

And again, full forecast details from Brittany coming up less than an hour from now.

This whole program doesn't happen by itself in Chippewa Falls.

It happens with

the essential assistance of one Parker Olson, who produces this fine program at the Civic Media headquarters down in Madison at the top of State Street right near the state Capitol in Studio A dose.

Mr. Olson, good morning.

How are

you?

I didn't know we were doing Spanish today.

It's a very international show.

It is a very international.

No, I was thinking about this yesterday.

We call it the world headquarters here in Madison.

Well, well, some do.

Yes, it's particularly

hot all the way.

Yes,

the global HQ.

That's us.

Yeah, we're worldwide.

Well, if you're using the Civic Media app, you can listen to us worldwide.

You can go wherever you want and hear us.

Absolutely.

And I have done that.

I have rigged some of our numbers occasionally as I've been traveling.

I'm like, Oh, there's about to be a civic media listener in this country.

So whatever works.

But we also know that we have regular listeners in some other states.

They are callers, they are textures.

And we appreciate that very much as well.

There are plenty of people who, you know, aren't in Wisconsin full time anymore.

but still want to stay in touch with what the heck's going on in their state, especially a particular baseball team that is doing really well once again.

And so the Brewers had a nice win yesterday, beating the Phillies yesterday six to three.

This is just a fun bunch to watch.

And especially when you see somebody who is quite likely, if he doesn't get to be the rookie of the year, Isaac Collins,

He's going to be way up there in the balloting.

Isaac Collins should be way up there in the ballot.

And my dad said this last night, and I think he's right.

This might be a little bit of a hot take.

I haven't heard anyone say this before.

Freddie Peralta for Cy Young?

I don't know that I'd put a question mark there.

I mean, he'll be pitching this afternoon against the Phillies and so he'll have another chance to make the case for that.

The pregame begins at 2.35 this afternoon on Civic Media Stations in Richland Center.

Oshkosh, Racine Kenosha, Park Falls and Hayward.

So yeah, I could completely see that.

His

numbers were ridiculous in the month of August.

I think his ERA was like...

Oh, 11 or something like

that.

It's just it's been that good despite injuries and there are more injuries that are happening.

Christian Yelich was out of the game yesterday with back soreness, which of course gives everybody a reason to pause.

We thought we were past that, but maybe not.

But Jose Quintana pitched well in there, pitched effectively into the seventh inning.

But I mean, the thing here was the the bats, the bats.

They don't come to life every game.

Don't get me wrong, but we have had more four or more run innings than anybody else in baseball.

It's not even close.

And the Brewers had jumped out to a five to nothing lead before an out was recorded in the first inning.

So they they know how to jump on starting pitchers for opposing teams.

Yeah, it worries me a little that they're so prone to one beginning and then almost nothing else at the rest of the game.

That worries me a lot for postseason.

It should.

And look, especially for the first quarter of the season, first third of the season, when the Brewers had no late game comebacks.

And then it was like somebody threw a switch and suddenly we're like the team of late inning comebacks.

But it, you know.

You don't know which one you're going to get on any given day.

So that's a very well grounded concern.

Roger on Facebook tells us the Cubs lost five to one.

So the Brewers magic number is now 17.

17

for I believe the number one overall in the division.

I think the playoff magic number is down to like 11.

Oh,

I could believe that

might be

lower.

Here's the thing you'll recall that the Brewers had swept the Phillies earlier this season in Philadelphia.

And so they have now clinched the season series and a potential tiebreaker with the Phillies as well.

There you go.

They've got a lot of those tiebreakers.

I think I believe the Brewers have a winning record against every division leader right now.

They do.

Yep.

The only one they, the only tiebreaker they don't.

own that I'm aware of, of course, is a big one with the Cubs.

But the Cubs would have to, you know, they're definitely playing catch up if they even want that tiebreaker to mean something.

So again, the Brewers against the Phillies this afternoon, 235 is the pregame.

Then the Brewers take off on the road, they have three games in Pittsburgh coming up this weekend, followed by three games in Texas.

before they head back home and calling up his handy-dandy schedule here.

They'll be home against the Cardinals starting a week from tomorrow.

They'll have a home series against the Cardinals and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim will be along as well.

And then there's not much more after that.

There's a trip to St.

Louis and San Diego and then a home series against Cincinnati to wrap up the month of September and that's it.

We're talking playoffs.

Are we talking playoffs?

We're talking

playoffs, baby.

It's September now.

We're allowed to talk about playoffs.

Yes, we are.

And I tell you what, while we're in the sports vein, while we've got the brewers going on, we've got football as well.

High school football on many civic media stations.

Badgers are playing Saturday against Middle Tennessee.

Coverage will begin at one o'clock on stations in Richland Center, Amory, Wisconsin Rapids, and Ripon.

And on Sunday, you've got the Green Bay Packers opening up the regular season against the Detroit Lions at Lambeau Field.

Pre-game coverage begins at one o'clock for a 325 kickoff on stations in Richland Center, Park Falls, Racine, and Wattoma.

Some of those Packer stations are not necessarily the stations where you'd hear the Brewers or the Badgers.

Different stations will have different, you know, games based on the arrangements that they made.

So you'll want to make sure to go to the civic media website, civicmedia.us to learn more.

Or as put so succinctly on YouTube by Tony, go pack go.

Do you know go pack go is copyrighted or trademarked, whatever the,

you can't, you can't just

grab that.

The team was smart enough to grab that, which I've

I and many others have had to learn the hard way.

You get

set to

incorporate that into something because it sounds rather generic.

Yeah.

It is not generic.

It has a trademark.

I have to say go Packers go.

And that just doesn't sound right.

Well, go you Packers go.

That's

a

song though.

Is it?

Who is it?

The Weisenheimers?

Who does that song?

Oh

God, I don't

know.

Just go.

Oh, it's a it's a fun song.

It is.

Go you Packers go song was by

Oh heck, where is it?

Yeah, the Weisenheimers there.

You're gonna you're gonna have to look that one up.

I think that can become a regular Friday feature.

Oh, a Friday feature.

Now just a little a little song to play on Fridays.

Wow.

You know, we're more than yacht rock here on Fridays.

We can play other things.

Are we?

Well, yeah, we can try.

We can try.

Okay.

I have a question for you, young man.

Whenever you hear a young man, you know, kind of a question we're going to get.

Yeah, the boomer's

about to come

out.

I saw a news report about something that's making a comeback.

Parents very concerned about their kids and cell phones.

And they want to monitor, you know, they want to know what their kids are doing that they're not going to get into trouble on those cell phones.

And so they got something else for the kids instead.

Landlines are making a comeback.

And I ask this in all seriousness, at the time that you were growing up, did you still have a landline?

Yes, we did.

We had a landline until middle of high school, I think we got rid of it, give or take.

Most of my life, we had a landline, yes.

All right.

So, well, should the landlines make a comeback?

Should that be something that households do consider?

Maybe, maybe we didn't have to cut the cord after all.

There's, there's a role for everything and maybe for kids, it's the landline where you kind of have to hide, take that long cord and hide in a closet if you want to talk to somebody.

From the heart of America's Up North, live from Lake Wissota.

Thank you for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.

I'm Pat Kroetlo.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Hey, you can be one of the many folks, the growing number of people subscribing to Sunday mornings with Pat Kratlow.

That's our Sunday newsletter that we put out at Up North News.

More of a politically themed newsletter compared to the Wisconsin future stories that you get on the weekdays from us.

And it includes our question of the week and we ask, should dreamers be deported from the only country they've ever known?

It's something that President Trump continues to target and advocate for.

Most recently, I see a news story today in the New York Times about going after financial aid for the children of undocumented immigrants.

Again, these are people who have only ever known the United States.

They've done their thing.

They've worked hard in school.

They've done their homework.

They've gotten good grades.

Of course, their parents are working typically in low wage jobs and so to make something of themselves to live, you know, the American dream might require some financial assistance and some states see that as an opportunity to train a new generation of workers, come to our university, stay here, become taxpayers and citizens in our state.

But not for Donald Trump, who wants to end all of those financial assistance programs, round them all up, put them in camps, send them wherever.

So what do you think of it?

Head over to upnorthnewswi.com, subscribe to our newsletters, and be the first to get our question of the week on Sunday mornings.

Tomorrow on the program, we will have Dr. Kristen Lyrely as always on Friday mornings in the eight o'clock hour, along with Mike Clemens, who at about 8.35 on Fridays, gets us set up for the weekend in sports.

And of course, we'll have our Week in Review panel with former U.S.

Attorney Jim Santel, Jennifer Schulze, Mark Jacob.

They all come up in the 7 a.m.

hour tomorrow here on the program.

Looking forward to having you along then as well.

But again, for today, Congressman Mark Polkhan will be here just over an hour from now.

The headline across national news outlets right now is all about states having to go their own way.

when it comes to vaccine guidelines and mandates.

Because not only do you have quackery in charge of the White House and the U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services, but you now have the first state saying it's going to get rid of all vaccine mandates, including for children.

And that, of course, would be the dysfunctional state of Florida, where again, this was the state that was first to really

buck safeguards during COVID and their death rate shot up like a rocket out of Cape Canaveral.

And for the leaders there, it was like, well, that's no big deal, you know, thinning the herd, as it were, which apparently is a, in their mind, a valid scientific approach to take.

For the rest of us, not so much.

And that's why you see states that are starting to go it alone.

There is, for example, a new West Coast Health Alliance made up of California, Oregon, and Washington state.

And they are going to basically, well, their goal is to, quote, ensure that residents remain protected by science and not by politics, say the three Democratic governors of those states.

The Alliance will provide recommendations to residents on immunizations and ensure the public gets credible information on vaccine safety and efficacy.

The governors say the partnership is a unified response to what they call the Trump administration's destruction of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the federal agency that's supposed to be responsible for vaccine guidance.

But a lot of those folks have been fired by Kennedy and have been replaced by similar quacks who want to cast doubts on, you know, science, facts, things like that.

Here's the thing, the Florida Surgeon General said in getting rid of these vaccine mandates said, your body is a gift from God.

Well, this all is in keeping with the ultimate far right goal.

which is self policing.

We typically see it with those, you know, those evil regulations, the red tape that they say is choking business and industry and so-called job creators.

And if you only let them police themselves, everything will be fine because they'll tell you it's in their own best interest to police themselves in order to be assured of ongoing profits.

That is, of course, uproariously stupid.

A corporation isn't worried about ongoing profits.

They want profits this quarter, and they couldn't care less about the damage being done in the future, whether it's to the environment, to workers, to customers, anyone, but themselves and other shareholders.

Self-policing is antithetical to a functional society.

A functional society needs rules, needs standards, needs shared facts.

That's not some stinging indictment of humanity.

It just is what it is.

If there weren't speed limits, you're going 90 miles an hour, doesn't make you a bad person, especially the 99% of the time that it doesn't cause trouble.

But we know that if everyone did 90 all of the time, the carnage would hit all of us.

Someone we know, maybe our children left dead on the road.

And that's what Kennedy, Trump and others don't mind.

Children left dead on the road,

through lack of vaccinations.

If it means that they can attract enough fringe support to keep winning elections and stay in power.

Dr. Oz summed it up yesterday in an interview saying this is the decision that a physician and a patient should be making together.

Parents love their kids more than anybody else could love that kid, so why not let the parents play an active role in this?

Well, Dr. Oz, they can play an active role in their child being safe or their child being in harm's way.

The difference is that

They can also play a role not only in their child being in harm's way, but all of the children around them being in harm's way.

A child not being vaccinated based on a shared set of facts and standards and science is akin to that child doing 90 miles an hour cruising down Main Street right past your kid's school.

A bunch of other kids doing 90 leaves other kids dead on the road.

And so that's why I'm happy to see the beginnings of sanity returning to American leadership, even if it's got to happen at the state level.

Because yes, every child's body is a gift from God, and there are still enough of us who know God isn't stopping measles or COVID.

God is trusting humanity enough to use the gifts we were given to use our brains, our science, and our hearts to take care of ourselves and every child.

Today's history lesson is coming up next, the Midwest Farm Report first, here across the Civic Media Radio Network.

I'm Pat Crichtlow.

Parker's got the dance.

He's got the dance figured out.

He, uh, he knows the video for, for today's birthday girl Beyonce, Beyonce Knowles is 44 years old today.

Happy birthday to Beyonce.

Uh, you know, formerly of Destiny's Child, but I guess she's done some pretty cool things on her own as well.

I didn't know

she was formerly of anything.

I thought she was just her.

Seriously.

Yeah.

Destiny's Child has a ring of bell.

No.

Not as

much of a bell as it should.

I guess not.

Okay.

Did you know that Coke changed its formula in 1984?

Oh, save that for another time.

kind of buy this man a history book.

Anyway, on this day in 1957, the governor of Arkansas called out the National Guard to prevent nine black students from enrolling in Little Rock Central High School.

A couple of weeks later, President Eisenhower would federalize the Arkansas National Guard and order it to protect students and allow them to enter.

That's how you use the National Guard if you are president.

Anyway, on this day in 1961, President Kennedy authorized the Agency for International Development, USAID.

It would become the world's largest aid agency with missions in more than 100 countries, in areas like health, education, environmental protection, embracing democracy.

In just the 20 years from 2001 to 2021, an estimated 92 million deaths were likely averted.

thanks to USAID funding.

It was originally designed by JFK as the soft power alternative to prevent countries from getting cozy with the Soviet Union.

Now, of course, dealt a death blow by Donald Trump.

It's China that is using its soft power to provide aid and business partnerships and potential military alliances as well.

But USAID was formed 64 years ago today.

All right, let's go to 1976 now, where the number one album was Fleetwood Mac's self-titled album.

The thing about this self-titled album going to number one in 1976, some albums they fly up the charts, others not so much.

This one had been released a year ago.

and was finally really getting traction with Rihanna over my head, say you love me, and more.

And again, was the number one album this week in 1976.

On this day in 1940, CBS began broadcasting television as a single station in New York City, station W2XAB.

It really doesn't flow off the tongue the same way that CBS does.

No, not

quite.

Too, too many

letters.

This is...

This is the W2XAB evening news with Walter Cronkite.

Just doesn't have the same sound to it.

By the way, speaking of CBS, happy birthday to the price is right.

That song just says I was too sick to go to school today and so I'm going to be watching daytime TV with Bob Barker.

America's longest running game show made its debut on CBS rather this day in 1972.

It was not really a debut so much as it was a revival.

It was a similar to a game that ran called The Price is Right from 1956 to 1965.

But that earlier version in black and white, it was a lot more sedate.

You know how you have those four contestants that bid on a prize, and then one of them gets to come up on stage and play other games?

Yeah.

Well, the old black and white show in the 50s and 60s, the whole show was just the four contestants repeatedly bidding on various prizes.

And it was this new version in 1972 that added all the other little games.

Like, remember Lucky Seven?

To get a new car you had

to

have the seven one dollar bills You had to have at least one left as you guess the numbers in the price of the car Which was a lot easier back in the days that I was watching it when a new car was like, you know 4,822 many

options

No, no and what what's the other go cliffhanger with the yodeling mountain climber?

I think they still use that one as well

It

started off as like a rotation of like five of these games and there are now more than 70

of these games that Drew carried the host Rollster now.

Do you have a favorite?

I don't know quite enough about the prices, right?

I'm not sure if I've ever seen like a full episode and only just clips of it.

I know.

I know.

I'm

sorry.

You did not come here for the abuse and yet you hear a whole bunch of us rattling our canes and our walkers going, what?

What?

Anyway, let's go back to 1976.

I said that Fleetwood Mac had the number one album.

The number one single this day in 1976 was by the Bee Gees.

Oops.

No, it wasn't.

There

it is.

Now it is.

There we go.

We've just had so much Bee Gees lately.

I didn't want to.

Now, you might think that it was number one because of its appearance in Saturday Night Fever, but you'd be wrong because the movie hadn't come out yet.

It predated the movie, but the song would be part of the soundtrack a year later when Saturday Night Fever came out.

On this day in 1951, Frank Sinatra played Las Vegas for the first time at the Desert Inn Hotel and Casino.

By 1959, he was the city's top draw.

And then later, of course, moved on to the Sands because Sinatra Live at the Sands would be Cal Basie Orchestra is simply one of the greatest albums you could ever own.

And why you don't is a mystery to me.

You got to go out and get that.

Bider, what do the kids call it?

Download it?

So what you do with music nowadays?

I look it up and I hit play.

There you go.

So that was 1951.

So now you're playing Vegas for the first time.

Let's go to 1971 where Bruce Springsteen was playing a show in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

And the East Street band finally came together.

when saxophone player Clarence Clemens joined the band on stage for the first time.

I miss the big man.

Loved hearing him play sax.

Now up to 1982 and here's some deja vu.

Steve Miller band hit number one this day 43 years ago with this song.

There it is.

Abracadabra, number one song this week in 1982.

Here's a little alpha and omega from the corporate world on this day in 1888.

George Eastman registered the trademark Kodak and received a patent for his camera that uses rolls of film.

That was 1888.

Fast forward 110 years to the day on this day in 1998, Google.

was formally incorporated by two students at Stanford University.

So happy birthday to Google.

I can't remember if I told this story a week or two ago or so about the day that I was at a some kind of a training seminar or whatever.

And it was about internet searches.

This is 2001.

So the internet's not brand new, but obviously still in its relative infancy.

And we were using like Alta Vista and Ask Jeeves and some of Yahoo.

And one of the guest speakers was like, you guys, there's this new search engine called Google, it's going to change everything.

And we all gave it a try and we're like, Oh, yeah, somebody figured it out.

You can search the internet and actually get the things that you want, which is what Google did for about, you know, 20 years.

And now I'm sure I'm not the only person's I know I'm not the only person saying this.

Google searches aren't

what they used to be.

It's like, I don't want to see all these sponsored links first.

Just give me the answer, you know?

Yeah.

And is that the way about everything?

Facebook, it used to be, it used to be a sequential list of the things your friends were posting.

I just want to see what my friends are posting in the order they posted it.

Facebook.

Google, all the rest of you, Twitter.

Why can't you just go back to the thing you invented that people liked?

I love how old man screams at cloud you sound right now, but you're 100% right.

Absolutely.

Yes, I'm screaming at the cloud that is Google.

I'm completely guilty of that.

Tony, I'm sure Parker remembers the Steve Miller band like it was yesterday.

Yeah.

Oh yeah,

I've heard this song at least three times now.

The time I recorded it this morning, the time I accidentally played it a minute ago and now.

And it's tied to UW Madison, which I guess you'll have to look into later.

What?

In that history book, I'm going to buy you.

That's not in the

history lesson today.

No, no, but there's some things you got to look up on your own.

You know what you do?

You Google it.

Yeah, isn't there?

Okay.

Here's a little, here's a little audio now from a TV show.

A brand new show this day in 2002.

Well, the season finale of a new series back in 2002 called American Idol.

And here was the first winner.

Now, of course, you have to wait, wait.

It's a lot of waiting

Kelly Justin, let's wait.

Yeah

The

winner of American Idol 2002 is There

we go Why does every reality show have to do that now?

Yeah.

Why?

I thought

it was funny.

Again, old man yelling that cloud.

I don't just tell me who won.

The winner is.

And then it's basically, the whole thing I like about the Saturday Night Live Skit, the Californians, is that that's what it does.

It just takes all those camera shots of everybody and plays the dramatic music.

Just tell me who won.

Why is this so hard?

The music

was

absolutely sending me.

Oh my

god.

I forgot American Idol.

Back to the history lesson on this day in 1993, this was a big deal.

Everybody had already was admiring Jim Abbott, a pitcher with one hand and his ability to be an amazing pitcher to make it to the major league level.

He'd pitch, he would instantly throw the glove off into his other hand if need be to catch the ball and field and he did all those things wonderfully and everybody was very happy for him.

On this day in 1993, he took it up a notch and threw a no-hitter against Cleveland at Yankee Stadium this day in 1993.

On this day in 2012, Imagine Dragons released their debut album, Night Visions.

Okay, now this is where we turn the tables and You know Parker gets to school me on you know the what the kids are like in these days imagine dragons Okay, they had this debut album.

It took off like crazy Yeah, and if I'm not mistaken there was a very noticeable backlash to imagine dragons.

Oh

Have they recall are they still do they are they still as renowned as they were 13 years ago?

I like he's taking this big inhale right now like he's either has no idea why I'm asking about this Or he genuinely doesn't know or maybe it's both.

I don't I don't know

a little bit of both I will say I don't think imagine dragons as big as it used to be I Didn't know that there was big backlash to them.

I thought they

just

got less popular

There is an infamous Washington Post music critic review of of and Imagine Dragons album.

Maybe they're follow-up one and just how vapid and empty it was and it's symbolic of how empty and corporatized music has become.

Oh, it's just it's a work of art.

But that doesn't necessarily mean the end of Imagine Dragons.

That's the thing.

On this day in 2016, Mother Teresa was canonized by Pope Francis as a saint at a ceremony in the Vatican.

Today is National Wildlife Day and it's National Macadamia Nut Day, which should not be a thing.

Not just the

day, the nut.

It's garbage.

This... We are here on the Civic Media Radio Network.

I'm Pat Critello.

Eight minutes before seven o'clock on this Thursday morning.

Welcome back live from Lake Rosota on the Civic Media Radio Network.

It is 45 degrees in La Crosse right now.

Amory is at 42 Oshkosh, 42 degrees.

And in Altoona at the Cabin Coffee Company, it is 42 degrees and Altoona is where we go with our next story.

Altoona, here in the Chippewa Valley, right next door to Eau Claire, where we had a visit recently from the Milwaukee County Executive, David Crawley.

David Crawley came up to the Chippewa Valley at the invitation of State Representative Jody Emerson of Eau Claire to check out a particular housing project, although I'm always

hesitant to use the word project when we talk about affordable housing because it is a very real problem and the solution comes in all shapes and sizes and this particular one in Altoona that David Crowley came up to look at a place called Solace Circle was a former assisted living center nursing home something like that that had been remodeled into micro apartments so very small

but affordable apartments.

Now there are all kinds of ways that you can address the affordable housing crisis.

And by the way, it remains a true crisis in every sense of the word here.

And it's one of the few things there will be bipartisan agreement on in the Wisconsin legislature.

And that's because studies have shown that if we want to keep the next generation of workers,

we need affordable homes.

If we want to keep some of our retirees here, we need affordable homes as they downsize.

You know, it makes no sense to say you want to downsize and sell your family home for a really good price.

If you can't find a place to retire to, that is also affordable.

So for all these reasons, it's forecasted that Wisconsin will need 227,000 new affordable housing units by the end of this decade.

And so there have been various programs to offer financial incentives to either build new units or renovate some existing spaces like the one in Altoona and turn them into these micro apartments up here in Chippewa Falls.

You've heard me talk about Hope Village, which is essentially the tiny house model where you're building these things that are not much bigger than sheds, but they're well built, they're insulated, they're secure and they

They are far less expensive than hotel vouchers or sleeping on park benches.

So you start someplace and David Crowley is no stranger to the issue of affordable housing.

Given that under his administration in Milwaukee County, they have produced some $45 million worth of resonances and not just in the city of Milwaukee, but in some of the suburbs around Milwaukee County as well.

So when the county executive came up to the Chippewa Valley, he said that the tour would help him highlight not only the ongoing progress being made around Wisconsin, but the ongoing need for various partnerships and financing and legislation that will be needed, especially if he becomes Wisconsin's next governor.

And Crowley did say in Altoona that he expects to announce within a few weeks that he is formally in the race for governor, but he did tour Solar Circle.

And then one of our former colleagues at Up North News, Julian Emerson, who now works with affordable housing issues in Altoona, had the opportunity to speak with him.

And Julian was nice enough to share that tape with us.

So here's a little bit of Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley talking about

why he came up to the Chippewa Valley to focus on this issue of affordable housing.

Well, being here at Solar Circle has given me the opportunity to see the groups on the ground who are doing incredible work from our local community leaders, private developers, Jonah, faith-based leaders.

It's extremely important to continue to build a table.

that allows everybody to really focus on the end goal.

And that is creating affordable housing, as well as wrapping around different services.

I know the governor Evers and his administration have been investing in affordable housing all across the entire state of Wisconsin.

But I want to be able to do more, right?

I want to make sure that we can.

get faster permits that we can focus on different housing models because every city village in town throughout the state of Wisconsin is facing an affordability crisis when it comes down to housing.

And so I'm looking forward to bringing that to this particular campaign once I enter the race because we need more affordability.

But we also need housing that is attainable.

And that's the other thing is it's one thing to say you want housing that's affordable, but it's got to be attainable.

You have to have enough of these units and they, again, can't be built by some kind of fly-by-night operators.

And that's where the financial incentives come in.

For the most part, over the past 20 years or something like that, most of the financial incentive for builders has been in what I would refer to as McMansions.

And they're fine.

Those are perfectly fine homes if you have the income for them.

But somewhere along the line, that financial incentive has been lost to build smaller homes.

more affordable homes, especially for, like I said, either people just coming into the job market or for retirees.

And so that's where the legislature has been working on things like loans and other incentives to local groups.

It's something that the Evers administration has worked on.

The Evers office has bragged that they have helped create more than 17,000 units.

throughout his two terms and it's something that David Crawley says he wants to work on as well.

Now coming up in our next hour we'll hear a bit more from David Crawley this time about of course the terrible flash flooding that took place in Milwaukee County and what were his thoughts on the FEMA assessments.

that have been going on so far.

And whether he is optimistic that despite the way that the Trump administration has politicized disaster relief, does he have confidence that they will get the federal aid that's needed for the dozens of homes that were completely destroyed because of the damage from the flash flooding?

So we'll have that coming up for you in just a little bit.

But first for us coming up at 707 meteorologist Brittany Merleau will tell us how long we're going to be in this September version of a deep freeze with temperatures in the upper thirties around parts of Wisconsin.

Maybe a little chillier than that.

She's the one looking at the maps right now and we'll hear more from her on that front.

And then at 735 we will be talking to Congressman Mark Bocan.

as Congress gets back in session after the August recess.

Remember, if you want more coverage from Up North News, be on the show, sign up for our newsletter at upnorthnewswi.com.

Live from the lake, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Crichtlow, powered by Up North News, right here on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Live, across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglo powered by Up North News.

Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglo.

Thank you, Don Rue.

Good morning.

It is 7 0 6.

Nice to have you here up north.

It's a Thursday morning, September 4, 2025.

Congressman Mark Pokan will be joining us less than 30 minutes from now to talk about Congress being back in session.

There was a lot of focus yesterday on the case involving sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, which seems appropriate because

That's where Congress was when they abruptly left town on their August recess.

Speaker Mike Johnson sent Congress home early rather than continue seeing the efforts to release more of the files that might name some very rich, some very powerful people connected to the case.

And if he thought that by sending Congress home early, folks were just going to let it go, he was wrong.

And so we'll talk to Congressman Polkan about that, about the potential for another government shutdown.

It just seems to be the way business operates with the current regime these days, and much more, again, coming up at 7.35.

But first, we have ourselves one frosty morning here, upper 30s.

In some cases, it's 42 right now here in the Chippewa Valley, but Brittany, 30s.

are back in I say to you in one of what appears to be not one of the little thin you know summer hoodies that that you can wear but this one's like got the it's it looks rather fleece or flantily over there.

Yes it's a nice thicker fleece kind of hoodie that I'm rocking this morning and it feels fantastic because there's frost all over the place all in the roots I can see outside on the tall grass this morning temperatures like you mentioned in the mid 30s

In Solon Springs, Naconto, you hit the coolest spots, but everybody else pretty much sitting in those low to mid forties this morning.

That frost advisory still for north central counties until 8 AM, so we're almost out of it.

Those winds are going to start to pick up again out of the Northwest, becoming breezy once again today.

Sun out there to start patchy fog as well, but more clouds as we go through the afternoon and especially into this evening.

because we've got another system headed our way.

This one is going to be a quick moving one.

It's pretty much an Alberta clipper that usually in the winter brings quick shot of snow.

Well, this time we're going to stay warm enough.

Don't worry.

It's just going to bring a quick shot of rainfall.

No severe weather with it.

We're looking at a good half an inch to an inch of rain possible up north tonight and probably about a trace to a quarter of an inch for the southern half of the state.

So this will start to push in around.

4 o'clock or so far northwest, continuing to become widespread overnight and then a little bit of rain will still linger for a lot of us early tomorrow morning before that kicks on out of here by about 10 a.m.

So it will leave us with a mostly cloudy day tomorrow.

Spots of sun later, still very windy.

A gale warning goes into effect on Lake Michigan tomorrow and we're going to see the coolest day of the week tomorrow as well.

So highs today, we're looking at mid 50s north to low 60s south.

And then tomorrow, we're looking at low fifties north to low sixties south.

We'll start to slowly warm things up as we go into the weekend and the weekend looks dry.

I'm sorry, gale warnings.

I mean,

I'm familiar

with the gales of November,

the gales

of September.

That's that's a different thing.

Yeah, those waves are going to be climbing up to 10 to 12 feet out of the lake.

So wow, so strong winds off the lake,

you will not be taking your kayak out there then.

No, no, I won't even go near the shore.

That's nothing to mess with.

No, not a bit.

Uh, okay.

Well, I mean, I, I did, I do have the, the hoodies handy.

Uh, and I did continue to hold on to them.

Remember I mentioned last week we had family up from Texas and they forgot their hoodies to lend a couple, but I, I see they made it back of course in the laundry pile, but they made it back.

So I will be ready for the season, but yeah, we keep this up.

We're going to have the

How did you refer to it?

Tender vegetation that's going to have to be brought inside or covered up, right?

Those little tender babies, those little sensitive vegetations.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

All right, Brittany,

thank you so

much.

We'll check in, check in with you next hour.

Let's just let's toughen up.

those plants, shall we?

We can do better.

Hey, reminder, you can sign up for our newsletters at UpNorth News, our unabashedly Wisconsin stories, a lot of features during the week, a political wrap up on the weekends as well.

Head over to UpNorthNewsWI.com and click subscribe in the top banner.

a quick little follow-up to well actually know let me get over to the the mailbag first because I'll bet that I let Brittany go and No, I do not see anything from Robin Tiger can see that's that's what normally

Gets to me so he may have other things that are going on today I did Parker mentioned that it was national macadamia nut day and I

I

believe the last thing I said was its garbage

Yeah, I have a night I have a feeling that might have been a hot take to some

that might have been from Tony on YouTube It's no cashew, but it's not bad But even more animated from Alicia who says Patrick in all caps macadamia nuts are delicious

I guess if you like chalk, sure.

Maybe that's just me.

I don't know.

I think you might be on the extreme end in this one.

Believe it or not.

Me?

Yes.

On the extreme end.

I know.

It's hard to fathom.

Find that hard to believe.

Let's see.

And Tony says this weather is chef's kiss perfect.

And that's why he's up in Ashland because he likes that.

much cooler weather.

He likes when summer is wrapped up as soon as the fireworks are put away for the 4th of July.

And that's fine.

Different strokes for different folks.

From Jim and Brookfield on the text line about the Powerball jackpot, which was not won last night, and now is climbing to at least $1.7 billion.

Good morning, Pat writes, Jim, if I won the billion dollar lottery, I'd invest in civic media and give everyone a raise.

and other similar media outlets to help counter all the misinformation out there in the media craziness.

I would try to be the opposite of Rupert Murdoch.

Thank you, Jim and Brookfield, for that.

And then about comments in the last hour about states kind of going on their own now when it comes to vaccine mandates and standards, Scott and Madison says, it sounds like these states are starting to do soft secession.

Could be, I mean,

In both directions, you've got the Florida Surgeon General, which I think needs to be in quotation marks, saying that Florida is going to get rid of all of its vaccine mandates, including for school children.

Because again, nothing says come live in our state like a rising death toll as it was during COVID when it was one of the deadliest places to be.

Other states, meanwhile, as we said in the last hour, are forming their own alliances to put forward actual credible science-based health information.

And it's awfully similar to something that Dr. Kristen Lierly talked to us about a couple of weeks back when she said that ACOG, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, was no longer going to accept federal dollars because of the strings that the Trump administration would tie to it and that

As much as we had all counted on the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to provide these guidelines, it may now be a case that these various medical organizations put that information out themselves because we once had for generations a federal government we could trust to rely on science and facts and have the compassion to put forward guidance that would provide proper information to people.

Not so much now.

And so you may see states, agencies and other groups and it's gonna make some people have to work a little harder to find credible information.

Kinda like the news.

There used to be three channels and you'd pick one and any of them usually had a gatekeeper mentality toward newsrooms where it was not so much what people wanted to know but what they need to know.

And now we've gone completely the opposite.

It's just give people whatever they want, not whatever they need.

And as a result of that lack of leadership by people with compassion and an understanding for facts, you've got to work harder than ever to figure out what's what when it comes to news and analysis.

And as I said in this time period yesterday, not everything is

automatically left or right.

You have to learn a little bit more about an issue to determine if it's something that you agree with, if it's something that you can support.

And one of those examples that I brought up yesterday was about shipbuilding.

And how Tom Nelson, out of Gamey County Executive, had a new book about the Edmund Fitzgerald.

And it's about so much more than that.

And it's a book I highly recommend.

And in part, it's about how America used to be a great shipbuilding country.

But over time, like so many other things that were outsourced, folks said, you know, it would just be easier and cheaper if we let these other countries build our ships.

And we let our shipbuilding dwindle down to nearly zero.

So now comes this announcement last week from the Trump administration that

they're going to partner, quote unquote, with South Korea to rebuild America's shipbuilding industry.

But I wondered aloud if that's really what this is, or is this just another way to continue outsourcing work to South Korea?

And Senator Tammy Baldwin rightly brought up concerns about what happens up in Marinette where they build ships.

So I sent a note to Tom Nelson about this asking, you know, what he thought of this partnership and whether it's, you know, good or not.

His response to me noted that South Korea is one of the dominant shipbuilding countries in the world Some companies may build more ships some other countries he says will build more ships in the United States in a single year They'll build more in a month.

He says Trump probably read my book He says if South Korea makes a long-term commitment, it would be really good But so far Trump hasn't done that with any other deal

And that's the most important point that that Tom Nelson hits on here is There are all these announcements about deals about trade deals, but they are usually Extremely at the surface just the What does he like to say the concepts of a plan like his plan for health care?

He has concepts of a plan we get these concepts of an agreement for trade or for shipbuilding or for anything like this

But we use this term, the devil's in the details as if, you know, that's a bad thing when we use the term, the devil, but really the details are where the work actually gets done.

And that's what we're waiting to see.

So, you know, forgive me if I don't want to be overly harsh about this Trump administration announcement because I want it to work.

Like so many other things, you want things to work.

When Donald Trump said originally,

I'm going to be the guy that cracks down on Wall Street.

People wanted to believe him.

Hey, the wealthy business guy says he's going to represent us on Wall Street.

Well, it turns out he was lying to our faces and has been nothing but a Wall Street friendly president.

But you don't know that at first.

You want to believe these things.

But again, with the shipbuilding one, we'll see.

Tony Zimmerman puts up on YouTube here.

Tom is great, referring to Tom Nelson.

And again, he's one of the people that we'll check in with on

you know, whether America and Wisconsin specifically will benefit from this partnership that is supposed to bring, you know, more shipbuilding to us.

We're following other news, of course, that we'll talk about throughout the day and the coming days here, including the possibility of National Guard troops being sent to Milwaukee on a presidential whim.

Not really rooted in anything real that they could do.

What cities need is more help with law enforcement.

They don't need troops on the streets.

They need people who are authorized to make arrests.

But of course that didn't stop the two Republican candidates for governor, Bill Berrien and Josh Shulman, from saying they support troops in Milwaukee.

because if there's one thing you can count on, it's a couple of suburban white guy Republicans running for political office to bash Milwaukee and to say, oh yeah, if we need a military takeover in there, that's just perfectly fine.

We may talk about that comment and more with Congressman Mark Pocan coming up in just about 15 minutes here.

But first from the heart of America's Up North, live from the lake.

Thanks for making this a place to spend part of your mornings.

I'm Pat Krightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

you

Welcome back at 722.

Let's see it's 42 degrees here in the Chippewa Valley.

45 in La Crosse.

Amory here at 42.

Oshkosh 43.

And then West Alice at the Pieces of Love Cake and Coffee in West Lincoln.

It's 47 degrees right now.

West Alice was one of the many places that saw flash flooding and tremendous damage a couple of weeks back.

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley was in the Chippewa Valley last week to tour an affordable housing site and to learn more about what could be done to increase affordable housing stock of all types throughout the state of Wisconsin.

But he was also asked about the FEMA assessment that was being done by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

And understandably, there's a little nervousness about this given that

Trump had first tried to abolish FEMA and said we're just gonna Put all that on the states and every state will just have to take care of their Disaster victims.

It's not like we're a country at all We're just gonna let each state handle it and now has backtracked on that a bit But has certainly not only been slow walking on FEMA but has at times politicized

the response to disasters.

There are places in California still waiting on any federal relief from last year's devastating wildfires.

Well, so when David Crawley was here last week, he was asked about the FEMA assessments that were going on.

This was prior to

Governor Evers formal request for disaster assistance, which was made since you hear this clip, but let's play a little bit of what David Crawley had to say last week about FEMA's work and what Milwaukee County had done at the very start of this disaster evaluation to hopefully help their own cause.

No, I'm incredibly grateful of the spirit of service that not only Milwaukee County residents, but many Wisconsin residents have been coming down, ascending into Milwaukee, West Dallas, Greendale, Greenfield.

All these different places have been hit extremely hard.

We did have FEMA come into a Milwaukee County and two other counties, and they've been doing incredible with their assessments.

And they let us know that more kind of we're kind of ahead of the curve.

We created an internal dashboard where we set out our damage assessment teams who uploaded not just their assessments with pictures, which gave them the opportunity to actually view a lot of the damage before they actually hit the ground.

There's about 40 to 60 individuals that were out on the ground within more county, Walker Shaw, as well as Washington County.

And I know that they're going to be doing their assessment and they're going to give that to the state of Wisconsin and then governor.

Ebers will make his determination on whether to again to ask President Trump for that emergency declaration.

It is my hope that we receive that declaration.

I think there's more way more than a hundred million dollars in damage in all three counties.

And there are so many residents who are hurting.

This has been a challenging time for many folks.

And there's no way as a community that we'll be able to rebuild without assistance from FEMA and the federal government.

And that's what that's how it's supposed to work.

the federal government, which is collecting money from far more billionaires than we have in Wisconsin and others, pools those resources together to help any of us in a time of disaster.

Unless, of course, you're politicizing it.

And that gets us back to what's going to happen with FEMA.

And I got an interesting text from a friend yesterday who had a plumbing issue.

and was expecting to have to wait a long time to get some plumbing help down there in the southeast corner of the state.

And was told, we're actually kind of free right now because so many places can't start their work because they're waiting on disaster assistance.

They're waiting on relief.

And from WISN TV, Channel 12 in Milwaukee comes a story of one of these folks.

The headline is Milwaukee resident tackles flood damage with personal savings says he can't wait on FEMA.

The story is about a retired city worker in Milwaukee by the name of Johnny Madlock and says, you know, basically as insurance companies are, you know, evaluating and as federal officials are evaluating.

I mean, the work has to get done.

And so he's draining his savings.

He talks about having to throw away his washing machine, his dryer, a lot of stuff that cost thousands of dollars.

And says he can't wait.

He says, quote, I don't think FEMA is going to give us the help we need because they got to go through the president in order for it to be okay.

And it's taking a while for that to do.

So I can't wait around on that.

So I've had to do it myself, you know, from the damages.

He says insurance will not cover a lot of the damages leaving madlock to clear debris and pay for the repairs independently.

Now, there are some who will say, well, isn't that how it's supposed to work?

I mean, there isn't a magic wand and that checks don't magically appear within, you know, a few days after a disaster.

And so if some people want to get started, they have to

dip into savings or borrow the funds or whatever.

And I completely get that.

Nobody should be under the illusion that every time that there's a disaster, everybody is made whole right away.

But it doesn't mean that we can't do everything possible to make the process efficient and to not play politics with it, where your recovery from a disaster is going to depend on your zip code.

I mean, it was just days ago we were talking about New Orleans and what was it, the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and what a disaster that was and the sympathy that many of us still feel for the city that has been trying to recover and rebuild.

And yet, what was the headline yesterday about New Orleans?

It was Donald Trump saying that he might send troops there as well because it's another one of those, you know, crime infested cities.

Even though in New Orleans, like in other cities, crime has actually gone down.

Crime isn't nearly as rampant as it was.

Not saying it's not an issue, but saying that it's a lie to say we're going to send troops in because crime is at some kind of an all-time high.

To say that Chicago is the murder capital of the world when it's not even in the top 10 in the United States.

So if we could please stop politicizing law enforcement,

and disaster relief and simply help people when they need it in a time of disaster and help people addressing the root causes of crime instead of putting tanks in the streets.

That would be very welcome.

I don't know if it's going to happen anytime soon, but we'll talk to Congressman Mark Pocan about that and more as Congress gets back into session.

The Midwest Farm Report is coming up next live from the lake.

You're listening to Mornings with Pat Crightlow, powered by Up North News here on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Welcome back.

Nice to have you along.

It's 735 on this Thursday morning.

I'm Pat Kratlow with Up North News, part of Courier Newsroom, a pro-democracy news network.

Go to couriernewsroom.com to read news from all of our state outlets and get links to podcasts, merchandise, and much more.

Tomorrow on the program, Dr. Kristin Lierly will join us along with Mike Clemens, giving us a preview of weekend sports.

We will have our Week in Review panel, which includes journalist Mark Jacob, Jennifer Schulze, and former U.S.

Attorney Jim Santel.

But let's turn now to Congress getting back in session after the August recess and Congressman Mark Pokan joins us now from the second congressional district.

Although technically it's a bifurcated job.

He's also kind of the de facto rep for the third congressional district.

We'll get into that a little bit later.

Congressman, how are

you?

I'm doing as well as you can when you're in Washington.

Exactly it.

What would you call it a productive August recess for you?

Yes, you know, whenever you're back home, you're getting regrounded, right?

You're finding out what people actually are talking about, not what the bubble and the lobbyists and everyone else in Washington talks about.

So, you know, it should be for all members, very valuable to do that.

But, you know, got a chance to talk to lots of people in district, got a chance to do a town hall and in third congressional district, got a chance to do a whole lot of things that I can't normally do when we're here three out of the four weeks.

and sometimes four out

of four.

I had said going into this that this might be the busiest August recess in recent memory.

I mean, there's some Augusts, they're very, they're quiet and members can can get a little bit more downtime, but that there'd probably be less downtime this time around because so many people want to bend your ear on what's happening in the nation's capital, not the least of which is everything that's in the Trump mega bill, all of the cuts that are coming.

and the misinformation that's been coming out about that.

Did I turn out to be pretty good in my guess?

That's what people want to talk to you about?

Yeah, I mean, you know, people still are learning about the big ugly law now, not the big ugly bill, because it's law.

And how so many people are going to lose their health care.

I think it's something like 15 to 17 million people, not just the Medicaid folks that won't happen until after next year's election, very conveniently timed.

But people on the Affordable Care Act, 20 million people, who are going to have subsidies increase next year.

And some people are starting to get notified of what those increases are.

And it's going to be pretty shocking to people.

So the health care aspects alone,

are one of the biggest.

But, you know, taking away food assistance from hungry poor kids, taking away education fund and K-12, you know, one thing that hasn't got a lot of attention is the Social Security Fund loses a year of life because of the tax cuts to the wealthy.

We lost that much revenue that would have been there for that.

So you've got a year less of life of Social Security.

There's so many things that people want to talk about and we're making sure, you know,

As people know about the bill, they dislike it by at least 20 or more points percentage wise.

We just have to make sure more people know about that bill.

And that's what we were doing.

Well, and you have to do that in the face of what I said, you know, I called it misinformation and you had it from the vice president of the United States making an appearance in lacrosse last week.

Yeah.

And again, making the case.

And I look back at the transcript of the speech because I was noticing it in a real time.

I'm like, is he just hitting the same note over and over?

And sure enough, six paragraphs in a row.

It was, well, your benefits aren't being cut.

Your benefits are being threatened by undocumented immigrants.

Of course, you use different terminology for them.

But it was, it's the immigrants.

It's the immigrants.

It's the immigrants.

It's the immigrants who are endangering your benefits.

it could not have sounded in my mind more like your classic smoke screen of, you know, it's those guys, it's not us who are cutting your benefits.

Well, yeah, I think with Medicaid is probably the best example.

You know, by law, you can't get Medicaid if you're not a citizen.

So there's no federal money that goes to that, right?

Right?

That's the federal law.

So some states have decided to put money in to make sure they're covering non citizens, but it's a complete

It's a complete horse.

I'm trying to think what I could say on your show.

I said this information, but you can say BS.

Yes,

BS.

That they would actually say that.

So they go back to their fear.

They go back to their safe zone, racism.

But the reality is tens of millions of people are going to have their health insurance at risk or their rates go up.

Quite honestly, all of our rates are going to go up because as we know, with less money out there that's less money for rural hospitals, people are still going to get sick.

And then that is going to go on to all of us.

So all they've done is done a cost shift.

to provide a tax break for Elon Musk and Donald Trump and Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos and the like.

We all wind up paying for it in other ways.

And healthcare is probably the most substantial where people are gonna see this hit happen and this cost increase.

But people are still paying too much for things.

Donald Trump promised last November, that's what he was gonna do when he became president instead.

All he's done is take pages of Project 2025 and sign the bottom of the page.

But it's not what we were promised.

You know, we're going to talk to Sean O'Malley in our next hour about your money in the markets.

And the subject that we're going to hit is the prospect of stagflation, that we might be there already with inflation, but also a softening job market.

And usually you don't see the two together.

And when you do it, it's especially bad.

You've got a president who only wants to look at one side of the equation and is trying to bash the Federal Reserve.

into cutting interest rates, even though that may not necessarily be the right solution.

But my question to you is about the importance of an independent federal reserve and how do we fix an economy if you've got a president trying to use undue influence on the federal reserve when it comes to interest rates?

Well, and the real thing that we should, you know, really be talking about for the president anyway is his tariff policy or lack thereof, right?

It's this chaotic policy.

He's affecting everything that we buy just about is going to have increases.

We just saw a bunch of countries not going to send things to people in the United States anymore because of a change that happened through tariff law.

You know, that's what's costing us.

We are paying for tariffs in the end.

So even though the federal government gets some of that revenue, it

It's our money because we're the end user of the people who buy things.

That cost is getting passed on to us.

So, you know, what he's doing at the Federal Reserve, I think, is obviously very problematic.

It's supposed to be independent.

That's why it was created the way it was.

But I'm more concerned with when you talk about inflation or the lack of jobs is what's happening through.

a very uncoordinated tariff policy.

In fact, you know, even the most Republican business people I talked to from Wisconsin, it's not even just, you know, the tariffs, it's the lack of a policy.

It's what you don't know could happen in a couple weeks.

So they're not making the investments that Donald Trump said they would to make things here because that tariff policy is on and getting off again and who's going to put the investments in when you have a chaotic policy.

So that's the one I'm really worried about hurting the economy because it's coming out of our pockets.

And it's also affecting the job market and everything else.

And you're getting this double whammy for Wisconsin farmers where China is now boycotting soybeans.

A lot of them come from Wisconsin.

And you know, an American company like John Deere is taking it in the shorts because of the tariff policy.

So there's a lot to watch in this.

And yet, you've got to spend time not so much focused on the broader economy, but on the prospect of I can't believe I'm saying this again, another government.

shutdown, showdown with a budget that has to pass.

Let's start with the background.

What is it that Congress and the president, but what is it that Congress needs to do by when to keep things going and what's the path forward?

So our fiscal year and September 30th, if you follow the cartoon, how a bill becomes a law, we have 12 appropriation bills that are supposed to be passed.

To be fair, they rarely pass on time anyway.

But at least some of them are done and there might be at what's called a CR a continuing resolution that just flat funds and continues current funding But this Republican majority can hardly do anything I mean, you know the amount of work that it took to pass the big ugly law if it wasn't for all of their donors getting tax breaks I don't know if they could have unified them around anything but right now We haven't done anything Substantive on the 12 appropriation bills.

So it should be an automatic.

They pass a CR, but they can't do it

with their own majorities.

So they somehow have to get democratic votes and they're trying to blame Democrats.

This is my favorite I tweeted about it this morning.

I mean, they want to say, Democrats are to blame.

We're not in charge of the House, the Senate or the White House.

They've got to figure this out.

And they're saying we're waiting for a proposal from the Democrats.

No, we're not in charge.

They got to figure this out.

They have not come for our votes.

They should be coming and asking and giving something.

But the problem is, because the president's doing recisions,

And Congress is giving up our Article 1 constitutional responsibility of power of the purse and the president stealing money through rescissions that Congress has approved, legally approved, we can't trust them on very much.

So this is going to be a shutdown if the Republicans can't act.

I hope Democrats hold strong and honor ourselves if they're going to steal money that we've approved that you can't trust them.

And that's unfortunately where we're at with them.

Think about just the Wisconsin delegation alone and then extrapolate that across Congress and realize why you can't get things done.

We're talking to Congressman Mark Polkan as the House of Representatives and the Senate come back from their August recess and the recess started on very abruptly with Speaker Mike Johnson sending members home because he did not like the fact that there there's a growing number of Republicans who also are unhappy that Donald Trump has flip-flopped on the Jeffrey Epstein case of the sexual predator now calls it a hoax when it's clearly anything but

And if Speaker Johnson thought that sending Congress home, you know, people would just stop thinking about it as we saw on Capitol Hill yesterday with so many of the Epstein victims coming forward, that's not

happening.

I think people deserve to know what's happening.

I didn't even realize that there's a thousand victims when it comes to the Epstein cases.

And the fact that they won't release the files and Donald Trump has had about 10 different answers for why, I mean, you know, it doesn't pass the smell test, right?

Why they don't want to release the files.

And what they released were almost everything has already been released and it's still redacted.

And excuse me, that was

Just a way to try to cover for the fact that they can't vote to pass something to say release the files We have a discharge petition right now.

You need 218 people to sign it.

We got four Republicans I believe have signed on so far every Democrat will sign on to it I have already and You know at least we should let the public see what's there is this

the most substantive issue we're dealing with?

No, I think people's health care and funding of government and what we're actually here to do is still gotta be a part of the mix that we're talking about, but certainly it doesn't pass a smell test that the president originally said that they would all be released and then suddenly they're not.

Now he's saying Joe Biden might have added names to it and he's got, depending on the day, a different answer, it's a hoax.

And yet I think, you know, enough people realize that that's just not a very credible answer.

And obviously, you know, it's obvious his name is in there.

It's just a question of how many times and how many times they're going to have to redact that.

And then finally, there's this prospect of the president sending troops to Milwaukee, as well as, you know, Chicago, all of these other cities.

Again, the Congress has has oversight powers that it could use.

What's your concern about whether we will see Donald Trump use the streets of Wisconsin to continue this show of force for whatever purposes it's all about?

It's certainly not about crime.

I think it's more difficult than in DC.

I mean, DC obviously is a product, so to speak, of the federal government, right?

So therefore he has a lot more control because we have budgetary control for DC.

However, when it comes to Chicago and it comes to Milwaukee, I don't think he can do what he's putting the bravado out there he wants to do.

But what he wants to do is keep you focused on crime, that there's crime going on everywhere because that's a great fear factor for authoritarians across the globe to make them give up their rights and their freedoms.

in order to have that leader make decisions for them.

So that's what this is all about.

Donald Trump trying to continue to gain power, take away our freedoms as individuals.

If we're scared enough, you'll let him get away with more and that's what his intention is.

Power and control.

Congressman Mark Polkan, we appreciate your time as always.

Hope you had a good August recess and we'll check in again real soon.

Yeah, thanks, Pat, as always.

All right, thank you.

Hey, live from the lake, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Kratlow, powered by UpNorth News.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

7.52 in the morning now, and it is 42 degrees in the Chippewa Valley, 45 in La Crosse, Oshkosh is at 43, and at Wonder State Coffee in Verroqua, it is 42 degrees right now, which I mean, Todd Alba, he loves when we talk about Wonder State Coffee.

It's one of his favorites, isn't

it?

I have my cup right now, a little bit of aqua blanca from Columbia, a one-state coffee.

Oh, okay.

And people go, wait a minute, Pat, why do you do the temperatures in Eau Claire Lacrosse, Amory, Oshkosh, like that?

Well, these are the times when some of our other stations are doing little local news breaks, but you lucky folks in the Chippewa Valley and Lacrosse and Oshkosh and Amory, you get to hang out with me and Todd Alba and Parker Olson for a few minutes.

Yeah.

And some people are like, where's the civic media apps?

So I can go to a different station.

Yeah.

Well, see, it works both ways.

And that's what I want to remind people of is, is you can either go to the civic media app and catch some of these things on other stations, or you can, you can subscribe to us as a podcast and you can listen to what we're yapping about later on and not miss your local newscast.

So we get it all.

you get the best of both worlds here, which by the way, when I've thought about this, it used to be, and look, radio still does a ratings book, of course, we know this, there's these windows when when ratings are taken.

But I've realized that, you know, back back in our day, Todd, there was just the ratings number.

Now, it's the ratings over the air.

It's who's listening live on the website, Facebook,

you know, YouTube, maybe even Twitter.

I think some of our shows have run there.

There's, you know, who's subscribing on Spotify, who's subscribing on Apple.

There's all these different ways to calculate who's act, how many people are actually listening.

And I choose to look at that as a glass half full thing that I can say when, and somebody goes, well, you know, your ratings down a little bit.

I can go, well, there's 12 other metrics out there.

You actually have no idea whether I'm doing a good job or not.

My job security is in the complexity and the volatility of all the fragmented ways that we all come together.

We don't just all have our transistor radio listening to Todd Alba weekdays from 2 to 4 p.m.

I

like this pack right low in the morning.

I like

this a lot.

This is fantastic.

However you get here is how you get here and we're very happy about that.

How was your day weekend?

It was okay.

And timely indeed, as Mike Lucas is fond of saying, because vaccines are the news, of course, because the CDC, RFK, Trump dismantled everything.

And now this morning, you probably already covered it, but...

Florida, announcing good old running to Santas, announcing that they are getting rid of mandates for all of childhood vaccines, which seems like a bad idea to me.

I got my, I was due and so I was very happy to get them.

Very thankful I could.

I got my second shingrix for shingles vaccine and my pneumococcal pneumonia vaccine, which reminds me back in college, I had a case of pneumococcal pneumonia.

I got some penicillin to clear it right up.

But I got my vaccines and the second shingrix knocked me out.

Knocked

me out.

And

so

I spent most of the weekend

uh recovering from that but today I actually feel a little bionic.

I feel really good today.

Uh it it does have that impact.

I have gone through both courses of that and both of them knocked me out.

They didn't kick in until if I remember right the 12th hour and then for that next 24 hours uh until 36 hours after the shot for that 24 hour period there.

I mean it is death warmed over and yet and people go well why the heck would you do that?

because I've had shingles and that is so much worse.

I will go through a little bit of hell to avoid going through all seven circles of it.

Okay.

And again, cannot recommend that strongly enough to people of a certain age.

Whether you've had shingles or not, do not just go, Oh, I might not get shingles.

It might be just fine.

You will thank me and you will thank Todd for getting those shots.

Well, I got mine at a young age.

I got mine in my early 30s.

I got shingles for reasons I won't go into.

I just had a lot of stress in my work at the time.

But I was thankful I was working for the state at the time.

I was on partial disability for three months because it was so bad.

It was terrible.

The worst thing I've ever had.

And so yeah, yeah, you're right, Pat.

It's just comforting for 36, 40 hours, whatever it is, not fun, but you get through it and it's fine.

And a million times better than actually having shingles.

Yes.

And I, to be fair, I had

a case of shingles that was diagnosed extremely early.

It's good to be married to a doctor who said, what's that thing?

You know, referring to the rash on my side over here.

I'm like, I don't know.

Is that poison ivy or something?

She's like, let's go see a doctor right now.

And so I did not go through anything nearly as debilitating.

Thank goodness.

But even for the short time that I had it, I'm all in.

on get this stuff treated, you just never know.

And yet, to get back to your initial point, you've got Florida going, you know, if you die, you die, which is exactly what they did during COVID and why so many Americans died.