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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.
Hey, good morning.
It is 7.06.
Nice to have you back here up north on this Tuesday morning, September 16th.
706 right now, Parker Olson producing things down in Madison Studio A2.
Eau Claire City Council President Emily Berge is standing by to talk about Derek Van Orden's threats to cut off federal funds to the city of Eau Claire, also on our next hour.
Dan Schaefer from the Reconbobulation Area and Cam Stevenson from Courier Newsroom live from Capitol Hill.
Meteorologist Brittany Merleau is back from her long weekend as well.
Before we get to her, good morning from Tigerton, writes Rob.
It's partly cloudy and 54 degrees.
I was busy mowing four yards in Tigerton.
It felt like July.
It was hot.
I drank plenty of water and Gatorade.
Yesterday, someone or some people vandalized Tigerton's Union Cemetery, knocking down grave flowers, knocking the flowers off my mom and dad's gravestone.
I had to go back and put those back up.
He says, in the weather almanac, yesterday in history, Warsaw had a trace of snow on September 15, 1959.
He says he's got mowing jobs in Wittenberg.
It's going to feel more like mid-July than mid-September.
And he concludes by saying on YouTube in the comments section, welcome back to Wisconsin's best meteorologist, Brittany Merleau.
Did you see the Northern Lights on Sunday night?
Brittany's back after a long weekend.
Well, you were busy having fun.
Was it a good long weekend?
It was fantastic.
But here's the thing.
I was up north up until Sunday.
That's when I left.
So I missed the Northern Lights in the best spot possible.
And I went down to see my sister.
It was her birthday.
So I was in Illinois while the Northern Lights were going on where I had just been.
So frustrating.
That's so unlucky.
I know.
That is very unfair.
As you noted in your forecast, showers and thunderstorms early this morning in north central Wisconsin, and this morning they developed a much the same way that they developed early yesterday afternoon, where it happened just east of the Chippewa Valley.
So we could see the skies getting really dark.
And yet we didn't get the rain because it was just firing up there and now it's it's moved its way a little further to the northeast or northwest, you know, no northeast
It's really interesting.
It's firing up right on this exact little front in this little area So it's not moving very fast and right now.
It's pretty much over what Park Falls Phillips.
Yep
headed towards Tomahawk, Minakwa You could see some heavy downpours maybe some pea-sized hail with that but nothing major and then of course
We got chances as we go through the rest of this week because all of this is firing up because of.
Big low pressure system is st and it is going to be drape and eventually moving i this weekend.
So we do ahead of us.
But first and I hope you've been enjoy feel.
It has been fantast summer here for us tempera rise to the low to mid eighties throughout the state as
still muggy out there.
And then, of course, as we go through tomorrow, more scattered showers and storms could start to pop up in the early evening hours after we already have another hot, summery, sunny day.
We'll be hitting 80 degrees across the state again tomorrow, nearing 90 in some spots.
And then the cool down starts a little bit.
That system starts to approach.
We have a little bit more scattered, numerous showers and storms up north on Thursday.
Temperatures slide to the 70s.
Sunshine still hangs on down south.
Madison, Milwaukee isn't looking at any rainfall really until about Friday and Saturday.
That's when statewide widespread of friends going to be pushing through bringing some moderate to heavy rainfall potentially
just in time for the weekend.
I know shocks.
Hey, we had we had a we had a couple of good ones.
So that's fine.
Let's see.
Robin Tigerton says I'm going to send Brittany pictures of the Northern Lights.
Thank
you, Rob.
Well, but Tony put it better when he said moral of the story.
Don't go to Illinois.
There you go.
I know.
I
know.
Family first.
Thank you, Brittany.
Appreciate it very much.
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as well where I have a question of the week and I lay out four widely spread conspiracy theories by Ron Johnson.
And I ask you, which one do you wish he'd just stop talking about forever?
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Let's talk now with Eau Claire City Council President and candidate for Congress Emily Berge who joins us now to talk about her congressman and the guy who apparently does not want to be congressman for the city of Eau Claire anymore.
Emily, good morning.
How are you?
Good morning, Pat.
I'm doing well.
How are you doing?
I'm good.
I'm good.
Now, I'm getting older.
My memory is starting to fail, but this much is this much I remember.
When you got into the race, in part it was because you were tired of Derek Van Orden essentially ignoring the city of Eau Claire and being downright hostile to it.
I feel like he's decided to take that up a notch with a couple of different tweets yesterday, threatening federal funding for the city of Eau Claire because he didn't like what some city council members had to say in the wake of the Charlie Kirk murder.
I'm betting that that's not sitting well with you or probably shouldn't sit well with, you know, 70 some thousand people in the city.
Yeah, I mean the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior and we have seen Derek Van Orden's bully tweets the way he has treated Yeah, me on the phone when I've tried to work with him You know to serve our constituents because we say we share the same constituency that 74,000 constituents of mine in Eau Claire are his as well and You're right Pat your memory is just fine that that is the main reason why I got into this race because we deserve better
in Eau Claire and throughout the whole congressional district.
Yeah.
And that's that again is in the third congressional district, which is a lot of Western Wisconsin and reaches into part of central Wisconsin as well.
You're one of three Democrats in the race right now.
The primary will be held in August of next year.
And we spoke in the last hour about
First amendment protected speech and how it's one thing for a member of Congress to be obsessed with Twitter and to tweet out threats about wanting to get people fired or cut off their federal funding But Van Orden's gone a step further now and has introduced a bill that would essentially allow government to you know police your social media posts and and cut off funding if they decide that it crosses some kind of a line with them
I can't imagine they would have supported this if if it were a Democrat proposing it if the tables were turned.
And yet I feel like Derek Van Orden either is is missing the boat on the First Amendment or and or has other things he could be doing instead as a member of Congress for his district.
Yeah, I mean, Derek and Orden's MO is riling people up and being a bully and not solving problems.
So again, more of the same behavior.
this legislature that he proposed, I read through it yesterday last night.
It's pretty ridiculous, the fact that attacks our First Amendment rights.
I mean, our whole democracy is based on our First Amendment and freedom of speech and how that's protected, even if people do not politically align with yourself.
So yeah, the whole thing is just ridiculous and harmful to our democracy, to our constituents, and we just deserve better.
Well, in terms of being a candidate for Congress, I want to hear more about how the campaign is going and also to let people know that in about 20 minutes, we're going to be talking to Fred Clark, a former assembly rep who's now living up in the Ashland Bayfield area and is working with a group that is trying to get that very expansive 7th congressional district better connected so that voters there have a better idea of the issues at play, of the record of Tom Tiffany, of the
alternatives that might be out there.
The third isn't quite as big as the seventh, but it too is a rather sprawling district.
Can you talk about what you've been doing as part of your campaign even before Derek Van Orden ratcheted up the, you know, a violent rhetoric?
Yeah, I've been, you know, we have 19 beautiful counties in the third congressional district and I have been very busy traveling throughout the 19 counties.
My goal is to meet all the people throughout the district because I think it's really important to show up, meet the people where they're at, listen to what's going on, how this Trump administration, Derrick Van Orden's actions are impacting them because it is impacting them.
And so it's important to hear from the people directly just how they're faring through this administration.
And are they better off now than they were a year ago?
The answer is no, by the way.
And it's just it's really important to get out there and
boots on the ground, meet the people.
I mean, that's why I love local government.
It connects me directly with the people and I'm just continuing my service that way.
I believe, yeah, go
ahead.
Go
ahead, Emily.
I think I met Frank Clark at the.
Jackson County picnic.
So
yes.
Yep.
And again, just a very active person when it comes to getting people together and talking about issues.
And that's the thing I want to I want to conclude on is the issues.
And again, we've touched on this.
You've mentioned, you know, inflation is still an issue.
China hasn't purchased a single soybean yet.
Not the 12 billion dollars worth that they bought last year.
So you've got farmers who are about to harvest a whole lot in Derrick Van Orden's district who don't have a market for their crops.
You have affordable care act premium subsidies that are going to be expiring.
You have the prospect of a government shutdown.
If Derek Van Ord is not going to work on those, I mean, talk about what you would do to better prioritize these issues that face the families of the Third Congressional District.
Well, I mean, there's, yes, we need our representatives to work for us and to actually get things done and not attack our freedom of speech, right?
That's number one.
Actually do the work and not spend your day on Twitter or whatnot.
So I would, again, the issues that I'm hearing, healthcare is huge out there.
People are really concerned whether, if you're a Medicare now, the potential cuts, if you are a Medicaid, the cuts that will happen, social security, people are very concerned about that.
And so creating actually a healthcare solutions, Medicare for all, I mean, let's, people deserve healthcare no matter how much money is in their bank account, what jobs they have.
who they're married to.
So, healthcare is definitely important to focus on.
Housing is very important.
We have a homelessness crisis.
We have a housing crisis.
It's not getting any better.
It's getting worse.
We need real solutions.
Let's make it legal again for government to build public housing and to fund those housing units.
Let's see.
And then water, you know, talk about agriculture, you know, our farmers are really concerned about enrolled.
rural and urban people are concerned about water quality.
And this is an issue that cuts across all political divides, Republican, Democrat, young, old, urban, rural, people want to be able to drink their water and use their water.
And again, there's different solutions there too.
We could put, you know,
Farmers are what they're the greatest stewards of our land and I think we can work with farmers to help protect our land and protect our water and so putting things in the Farm Bill that really make that incentivize those practices.
They're already doing a great job and just helping them thank farmers in general.
You know, we should have more farmers on our land, not less and stop the private.
privatization and the corporation farming, and let's allow farmers to feed their families and feel their communities.
So lots of different issues, real things that I'm hearing out there.
I'm asking people, not only what are you're concerned about, but what are your solutions?
Because the people who are closest to the problems have the best solutions.
So that's how we're going to get things done.
Emily Berge is a candidate for Congress in the Third Congressional District, the president of the Eau Claire City Council, and looking to represent much more than the city of Eau Claire, but perhaps more so than the current congressman for Eau Claire and the Third Congressional District.
Again, one of three Democratic candidates for a primary that will take place in August of next year.
A long campaign trail ahead, Emily, and I really appreciate you taking some time off of your regular duties to tell us about recent events.
Thanks for stopping in this morning.
Have a great day.
Thanks, Pat.
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you so much as well.
And again, we will continue to talk through candidates in this race, especially in this particular district, the Third Congressional District, because again, we have all of these real issues to deal with.
And we have a congressman who's fixated on getting cities and companies to fire people because he doesn't like the words that they say.
That's not how things work in this country.
We will be talking, as I mentioned to Fred Clark, about the 7th Congressional District coming up in just a bit.
I'm Pat Critello.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
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Welcome back to special sports coverage by mornings with Pat Kratlow today.
We look at a clash of Titans.
Four would enter the arena.
Only two would come away victorious after mortal combat.
Hand to hand, eye to eye.
paddle to paddle the eighth annual clash of the paddles to benefit the YMCA of the Northwoods on the frozen tundra of Pioneer Park.
Field General Dan Hagen has wounds that may never heal but also memories of a glorious contest that will last forever.
Dan Hagen, welcome.
We cannot wait to hear about the battle.
You encapsulated that perfectly.
I put on my War Paint Saturday morning and I headed into the Pickleball Court at Pioneer Park.
And some old people beat up on me.
We lost two.
some septigenarians.
I am
looking at the I am looking at the metal podium right there.
And there you are, you know, smiling, looking happy, looking like you just came out of the Olivia Newton, John physical video.
And they're on the top of the podium are white
hairs,
some so that's a lot of gray hair up there, buddy.
But apparently they have more time.
See, you're you're you're a working man, you can only do so much practice.
And that's
right.
You know, these guys, you're
ahead of the curve.
If you think about it, you're already this good.
Think about how good you'll be when you're old.
That's what I'm saying.
Right.
If I just keep at it, my partner keeps at it.
I think we could do some great things, but it was kind of interesting.
All of the skilled players were using precision tactics.
My buddy and I would hit the ball as hard as we could right up the other team.
There's your strategy.
Hit ball, sea ball.
Yeah.
Oh boy.
That's great.
Um, well.
You enjoyed yourself.
You you got you got what hardware for that?
What was it third
place?
I got a trophy.
That's
right for to be clear This is the B division.
So it is not even the top division
You know, but it wouldn't take much to put a little plate right right below that and just have it say like, you know
Wisconsin Broadcasters Association Man of the Year or regional ME or something like that.
So
I have access to Photoshop at WJFW.
Anything is possible.
I was thinking about making the trophy a lot bigger.
I
think you should.
I love that.
So I'm glad you had a good weekend.
Congratulations on all of that.
You do have still the day job at NewsWatch 12 there in Rhinelander.
And what are some of the things that you guys have been covering up in your neck of the Northwoods?
Yeah, we sometimes go down to Stevens Point that is part of our viewing area So we went down there yesterday and the city has installed some lockers for unhoused people There are a lot of homeless people living in downtown Stevens Point because of access to some great resources such as the public library for Wi-Fi and charging their phones as well as the Franciscans downtown, which is like a Franciscan I think monk, you know
gives out free meals every day at noon.
And there's also some other, you know, accessible places downtown.
So Mayor Mike Wiesa, who I'm sure you've had on the show, he along with other city leaders have installed these lockers.
So these people who have pretty much have their belongings on them at all hours of the day now have a place to put their belongings so they won't get stolen and so that some business
some business owners in that area won't have to have so much kind of just stuff all around.
Yeah, I mean, it's not an apples to apples comparison of what we have here in in Chippewa Falls with Hope Village, you know, the tiny houses concept of at least having some place other than, you know, a park bench or something like that.
In that same way, however, you know, just having these lockers
as opposed to, like you said, you see shopping carts or everything's in one great big garbage bag that people are carrying around with them.
And there, like the tiny homes, you add a degree of dignity to people who are clearly down on their luck and clearly need access to resources, which is hard to do when you're just dragging everything along with you.
And I think the idea is it's just one less thing they have to worry about.
One, you know, some more.
brain space for them to figure out, okay, how can I get out of this predicament?
And then Steven's point, as well as working on like kind of a permanent homeless shelter.
So that should be in the future.
Okay.
And you were working on a story or you and the team that were working on a story regarding the Lactoflambo today here correctly?
Yeah, so the Lactoflambo tribe, this is something I learned yesterday, but they came out with this announcement that they have expanded their reservation boundaries.
I
kind of figured this was a set thing, but they're expanding their boundaries.
They're also purchasing more land inside their reservation.
If we want to do a history lesson, the Dawes Act of the 1920s carved up reservations, allowing the land inside to be sold to non-tribal members.
So really, if you look at a map of their reservation, it's kind of a
patchwork of tribal land and non-tribal owned private property.
So the tribe has been able to purchase some of that land back.
They've also been able to expand their borders for the first time into Iron and Oneida counties and of course this is
This is all seeded territory that they sold to the United States government centuries ago.
So just something that I thought was kind of interesting.
Well, yeah, it is because all we've been hearing about is the road dispute with easements.
And a lot of that is based on property ownership.
So a development like this is definitely noteworthy and worth following from the folks over at WJFW News Watch 12 in Rhinelander.
Uh, Dan, you, what's your next mountain to climb here?
I mean, we've, we've done the, the battles with the paddles.
Where do you go from here?
Is it just Berkabiner training or do you, do you have something else along the way?
What's your next test?
I have a half marathon, the three eagle half marathon.
It's, I think October 6th.
It's between three lakes and Eagle River.
I really don't want to do it, but I wanted.
get better at skiing,
so if I'm in a better shape for skiing... We've got the sports music, let's bring the sports music back.
We'll get you all pumped up for this again.
We'll look forward to the day where we can again say that that warrior Dan Hagen has been training.
He's got the eye of the tiger.
He doesn't have the...
Parker doesn't want to play the music.
Anyway, you've got the City Hall in Philadelphia.
You don't need to run up those steps.
You just need to outrun the whole day.
Dan Hagen, thank you so much.
Thank you, Ben.
All right, we will be talking to Fred Clark about matters in the 7th Congressional District up north right after this.
I'm Pat Krightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
We've got Brewers baseball on several stations across the Civic Media Radio Network.
Brewers taking on the Los Angeles Angels.
Pre-game coverage begins at 6.05 on several stations across the Civic Media Radio Network, civicmedia.us to learn more about that.
All right, we spent the past half hour talking in part with Emily Berge about the third congressional district and representative Derek Van Orden not exactly being representative of the district.
It's a sprawling district.
It is sometimes tough for all the various progressives and moderates in all of those counties to get together.
And at that point people in the seventh congressional district up north say, hold my beer.
because you've got an even bigger district there.
So much more sprawling, so much more of a challenge, but former state assembly rep Fred Clark is up to the challenge.
He and others are putting together a new group that is meant to help people understand the issues at play in the seventh congressional district up north.
And Fred Clark is with us now.
Fred, good morning.
How are you?
Morning, Pat.
Wonderful.
Thank you.
The sun's out, and we're in the perfect period of late summer, early fall.
Yes, we are.
And, you know, you represented the Baraboo area for years in the Wisconsin legislature, and now you moved way up north.
And you might be retired from the legislature, but you're hardly retiring from public service.
And now we might have mentioned this in a previous visit.
But before we get into the whole Northern Alliance and everything else,
Why?
Why do you choose to stay involved even once you've changed zip codes and have a chance to just ignore all that political noise that's going on out there in the world?
Right.
You know, the din of what comes out of Madison or Washington isn't quite as loud up here, but I'll tell you right now, people are paying attention.
I just think, Pat, we're in an extraordinary moment as a nation and in our region.
both because of world events and because of what's going on right now with our federal government.
So a huge source of concern from almost everyone I talked to.
And that's part of the reason why I do stay
involved.
Yeah.
And well, on top of that, you've got a representation in the seventh district through Tom Tiffany, who like you and like me, we're all former state legislators.
And Tiffany has now been the congressional representative.
And while you don't hear nearly as much about him,
as Derek Van Orden, because he just can't shut his mouth or his keyboard.
The fact of the matter is Congressman Tom Tiffany, along with the rest of the Wisconsin Republican congressional delegation, they all appear pretty much in lockstep with, you know, what what the Trump agenda is and what it has been doing to their congressional districts.
Yeah, absolutely.
And that was one of the reasons that we really did
decide to become more active in organizing in the 7th congressional district because back in February and March when Elon Musk was taking a chainsaw to the federal government with absolutely no oversight, huge amount of destruction there with firings and agencies ground to a halt.
And then the big beautiful bill that passed with...
so insufficient debate and lack of understanding of what was in it that's only beginning to come to light now.
And during all that time, Tom Tiffany was basically silent or absent.
He had many, many requests for him to appear in public or to hold a town hall or talk to his constituents.
And up until Tuesday of last week, he had he had not had a public event.
So, um, we learned a lot over the course of the summer and then we're trying to put that knowledge into action now.
Yeah.
And basically, uh, for folks who aren't familiar with the seventh congressional district, it's, it's not the entire northern half of Wisconsin, but it's mighty close.
If you go down Florence County forest, Langley through and ago, and then down to marathon, uh, down to wood and parts of Juneau and Jackson and Monroe.
And then you, you
Start that triangle up the other way go up through Clark County, Chippewa County, Barron County, Burnett County Basically that entire V and then throw in Polk County and St.
Croix County for good measure That is the the very large seventh congressional district one of if not the large congressional district east of the Mississippi River and so there is this challenge of reaching everybody I certainly know from having run in that district for Congress in 2012 that you have
Sure, you have all of these county party.
You have the state Democratic Party.
Then every one of these counties has a county party.
But then there are plenty of groups out there of people who don't necessarily want to belong to a political party.
They have their own issues.
They have their own priorities, but they still want to remain active.
And part of the challenge has been
keeping all of these folks up to date with issues, with what their incumbent congressmen and legislators are doing, and maybe uniting around certain issues and maybe uniting around certain candidates.
And that has led you and others to create something called the Northern Alliance of Wisconsin.
Tell us more about that.
Yeah, you bet.
And that really grew out of a couple of friends of mine up here in Bayfield County.
decided to quit griping about it and we went on the road last summer and took trips to Merrill and Wausau and Woodruff.
Anago and Marshfield and over on the western side of the district Hudson and Spooner and Webster And and talked to Democratic and independent groups throughout that region and about 20 different visits and that's what we heard over and over was a set of themes and concerns about healthcare and immigration and about the economic effects of this insane tariff war that nobody understands and and also a desire to be better organized and and
just such a huge district that when we began to talk about a network to stitch all of that energy together, lots of heads would nod.
So that's the whole purpose of the Northern Alliance is to really bring those groups together and help share more information, best practices, and just share the energy.
And right now that group has a website up, it's a pretty simple one, Northern Alliance WI.
Again, northernalliancewi.com and you do have your first virtual event planned.
And again, that's where technology is our friend.
Because again, back in 2012, you know, a little candidate Pat Crite low, you just got in the car and you drove like crazy.
And now thanks to zoom and other technologies, you guys are able to put on a virtual event that people throughout the seventh district can take part in.
That's right, we're spreading the word for that right now.
It'll be a big Zoom call and anybody anywhere in northern Wisconsin's welcome to join and learn about what we're doing.
We're going to share some just
information about what we learned over the course of the summer organizing this thing.
Pat, we're going to hear from you.
Thank you for being willing to be part of that.
Talk a little bit about your experience and some of the history of organizing in this region.
And then we're going to hear from some younger folks who are doing organizing in a different way that it's really just a breath of fresh air, bringing younger people into local community issues where it's not just elections.
It's about
all the other issues that are important to quality of life and communities.
And the durability of that is really important thing that we can learn about.
And by the way, when you mentioned younger people, which, you know, can you believe there's anybody younger than us?
I mean, how is it that we, where did all this gray come from, from all of us?
But anyway, my point being that these younger folks, their ways of organizing and communicating are not what we grew up with.
And that's a good thing because again, the technology has advanced the, you know, the passions have changed.
I mean, I'm early Gen X and it's felt like our generational motto was apathy.
And it's
so
not the case now that they're making, you know, TikToks, they're making reels, they're posting stories and telling stories differently than we did.
They're really they're losing the jargon.
They're getting much more real, if you will.
Things aren't so slick and polished.
They're much more at grassroots retail level.
And frankly, with a congressional district that big and with multiple expensive TV markets, it's this kind of digital communication that is really going to be key to stitching together an entire northern half of the state.
So that has to be really encouraging to see that development.
Well, it is and it's something that we need to grow.
And the thing that we've heard often about, and this is some of the rap on traditional party politics is that, well, Democrats would beat your door down for two months in September and October and tell you this is the most important election of our lifetime.
And then we go away and you don't hear from us for a year.
And a lot of people that feels
extractive and and what they want to do is find a reason to stay in organizing in a community throughout the year and find your local issue.
There's no shortage of them, but let's organize around that and an election will be part of it.
I have heard that so much in in recent years that that phrase year round organizing
and
it's people who again understand the value of
not making this simply transactional.
I come to your election season, you vote for me, and then I leave you alone.
Well, it's not about leaving alone, it's about keeping conversations going, keeping engaged, keeping people informed on the issues.
And the challenge here in the 7th Congressional District is you have an incumbent who obviously has access to funds and to media and everything and can spread whatever kind of a message he wants.
And, you know, how do you go about pointing out
How much more he's adding to the national debt?
How many more people are being kicked off of Medicaid?
What happens when all of these public lands get sold off?
It is so much more of a challenge that, you know, people go, why are you starting this early for 2026?
Well, there are some of your reasons right there.
Yeah, absolutely.
And Congressman Tiffany was on a ton.
His first
Public Appearance was a telephone town hall on Tuesday of last week along with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and of course the two of them complimented each other throughout the course of the hour while promising that no one would be hurt by the gigantic cuts to Medicaid just as one example.
And we know that's not true.
We know that Wisconsin's already bracing for a huge fiscal impact on those cuts.
The rural health care system is already beginning to feel the strain of the changes that's going to force closure of clinics and ultimately lack of health care access for everyone.
Just one example.
And I'll tell you, I was looking up the headline.
I wanted to get it just right from Politico.
political magazine out in Washington DC.
And here's the headline, the rural health hunger games are underway.
States are scrambling for a piece of a $50 billion fund.
But of course, it is unclear exactly how you qualify for that money unless Dr. Oz or Donald Trump, you know, happened to wave, you know, wave their hand and approve or disprove of things.
And they're making this sound like this $50 billion fund.
When actually what it is is there was a much larger cut to rural health care And they're putting 50 billion back in and saying here now you all compete for this
Yeah, and and it's heard someone compare this to You know if you told all the restaurants in your town that they couldn't serve a third of your people that live in the town But we'll give you a couple thousand bucks just to stay open.
Well, it doesn't make any sense
And the loss of coverage to people that need it is going to be felt in shorter lives, unhealthier lives, and ultimately more people in ERs, relying on charity care.
Yeah, if you can even get to the ER.
And so that, again, is the larger point, is that your Tom Tiffany's and others are going to be saying, look at this brand new $50 billion fund.
And
what they're not saying and what we need more people talking about is how that doesn't come near to making up that so much more than $50 billion was cut.
And again, that's just for this one issue.
And it's why the Northern Alliance came together.
So to learn more about the group, maybe get on their mailing list, maybe sign up for the upcoming Zoom session, head to northernalliancewi.com.
And like I said, I'm looking forward to being part of the event, and certainly a lot to be said here as well by former state rep Fred Clark, who's now helping organize the Northern Alliance with a team up and way up north, as I like to put it.
Fred, thank you so much for visiting with us.
I appreciate it very much.
You bet.
Bad grade to see you and see you in a couple of weeks.
See you in a couple of weeks as well, Fred.
Thank you so much.
Still ahead, coming up in the next hour, we've got Dan and Cam.
Cam Stevenson from Courier Newsroom, live from the nation's capital, and then Dan Schaefer from the Reconpopulation Area, talking about the latest in Wisconsin political news, including that ever-expanding race for governor candidate
field.
We'll be back.
Hey, remember if you can't listen for the entire three hours every weekday six to nine and I mean I can why can't you I gotta be here Well, you don't have to be you can pod this program.
You can head over to Spotify sign up to follow the program and that way the latest Editions here are downloaded right to your phone and you can listen to them on demand when you're doing something else around the house or on the road Whatever the case may be you can do that with Apple wherever you get your
Podcasts pick your favorite platform ours to Spotify get over there and follow us as a show some breaking news out of Hollywood and this is truly the the the loss of a legend of moviemaking from my younger years Robert Redford who was a big-time charmer turned Oscar-winning director
whose hit movies often help America make sense of itself, as written by Brooks Barnes of the New York Times, writing these obituary, says that Robert Redford died early this morning at his home in Utah.
He was 89 years old.
He writes, with a distaste for Hollywood's dumb-it-down approach to moviemaking, Redford typically demanded that his films carry some cultural weight, in many cases making serious topics like grief and political corruption resonate with audiences in no small part because of his immense star power.
He was in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1969.
He was talking about the journalistic pursuit of Richard Nixon in the Watergate era with all the president's men in 1976.
In three days of the condor in 1975 he was an introverted CIA code breaker caught up in a murderous cat and mouse game.
He was a depression-era grifter in The Sting in 1973, which gave him his first and only Oscar nomination as an actor.
He was a Hollywood leading man for decades in comedies, in dramas, in thrillers.
Studios often sold him as a sex symbol, and why wouldn't you with that guy's good looks?
His body of work as a romantic leading man
owed a great deal to the commanding actresses who were paired with him.
There was Jane Fonda in Barefoot in the Park in 1967.
There was Barbara Streisand in The Way We Were in 1973.
There was Meryl Streep in Out of Africa in 1985.
He later would branch into directing in his 40s and he won an Academy Award for his first effort, the movie called Ordinary People.
in 1980 with Mary Tyler Moore about an upper middle class family's disintegration after a son's death.
Ordinary people also won three other Oscars including for Best Picture.
He then had perhaps his greatest cultural impact as a make it up as he went along independent filmmaker.
In 1981 he founded the Sundance Institute
which was a nonprofit dedicated to cultivating fresh cinematic voices.
He took over a struggling film festival in Utah in 1984.
He renamed it for the Sundance Institute a year later, and now the Sundance Film Festival is a global showcase and marketplace for American films made outside of the Hollywood system.
Robert Redford, again, you could go on and on as this article in the New York Times does for his environmental work, for all of his other causes along the way.
But again, in terms of true box office gold, there was nothing bigger in the 1970s, arguably.
And he was the guy.
It was Paul Newman, and it was Robert Redford.
Those were the two.
You saw them in The Sting and in so many other movies, Paul Newman is gone and now Robert Redford is well, passing away at the age of 89 in Utah.
So wanted to pass along that for you.
We will have on Thursdays now, Sharita Booker will join us to talk about the festivals and events and things.
We've been talking about all the county fairs in Wisconsin.
Well, those are all done now as Parker knows as he's had to listen to me week after week go through the list But you know what we're not done yet having fun in Wisconsin on the weekends and so I wanted to share a few of these this weekend for example the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra this weekend is playing along with the 1989 version of Batman the movie
with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson and all of the music that was composed by legendary Danny Elfman.
And so the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra will be playing the music of the 1989 Batman film and screening it coming up this weekend.
I love those things.
Those are so cool.
Oh, there's the, there's the Wet Whistle Wine Fest in Algoma Friday and Saturday, the Brentwood Chili Cookoff, the Waukesha Apple Harvest Festival on Saturday, the Bonduelle Founders Day on Saturday.
Saturday is also Downtown Beloit Fall Festival.
Here's one in Edgerton, the Atomic Voodoo Rockabilly Meltdown.
The Atomic Voodoo Rockabilly Meltdown is a live music and car show with raffles and prizes and food trucks.
By the way, all of this is off of the Travel Wisconsin site and Sharita Booker on Thursday will focus this down to three and tell us more about it.
But I bring it up because last weekend we went to the Fall Festival and Eau Claire had never been there before and Sharita wanted to go and I'm like, why?
She's like, well, because Sharita made it sound fun.
Xerita has never been there, but she makes everything sound fun.
She said it's her favorite, favorite segment.
Never mind, you know, me.
So there's also see if you see if you can tell a theme with this weekend's other festivals.
There's October Fest here in Chippewa Falls.
Coming up this weekend.
There's Waukesha, October Fest.
There's Munich in Manitowoc this weekend.
There's Elktoberfest in Elkhart Lake.
See what they did there,
huh?
There are October Fests this weekend in Burlington, in Stevens Point, and in Three Lakes.
And do you know what's happening in the Fox Cities this weekend?
Irish Fest, Irish Fest of the Fox Cities.
Come on, guys.
Turn the page on the calendar.
I forgot about Irish Fest in the Fox.
Yes, all of that is going on here.
And again, over at Travel Wisconsin, you can and then that's that's before the colors even start popping when people are going to be taking their road trips, which I'm I'm already looking forward to.
There are
leaves falling off of the tree that I parked my car next to already.
Yeah, yep, I totally see that happening.
I think Alicia speaks for many saying I had such a crush on Robert Redford in some of his younger films.
Again, he was just that big a deal.
If you're a little too young for this segment, pick any one of those movies and spend some time getting to know Robert Redford this weekend.
Cam Stephenson is standing by in Washington DC to tell us what's happening there along with Dan Schaefer in the next hour.
I'm Pat Crightlow.
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