Corporate Media Claims Another Comic (Hour 1)

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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Kratlow powered by Upnorth News.

Now, from our Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Upnorth News, Pat Kratlow.

Well, hey there, Wisconsin.

Good morning.

It is 6.06 on a Thursday morning, September 18th.

2025 it's another beautiful morning to welcome you here, having you here up north live from Lake Wissota from wherever you're spending your mornings listening across the Civic Media Radio Network or by podcast, social media.

I appreciate you getting your day going right here and I've got a question for you.

Did you ever think we'd be defending Jimmy Kimmel as part of an American crisis over the First Amendment?

I mean, sure, Stephen Colbert, that makes sense, but Jimmy Kimmel.

who's not a bad guy at all.

It's just that he would have been third on my list of late night comics to watch.

And yet here we are making clear that ABC capitulating to Donald Trump by pulling Jimmy Kimmel off the air.

Well, that's just something that autocrats do and the corporations that surrender to them.

And again, we have seen this in other countries where media outlets

aren't necessary part of the ruling regime, but they are so afraid of it that they will do whatever it wants, which may as well be state-run media.

And again, this isn't about a joke that Jimmy Kimmel told.

If you're not familiar with it, Jimmy Kimmel did say something about the person who shot and murdered Charlie Kirk last week and made clear that the entire Trump mega movement

was racing to conclusions about the shooter.

And Jimmy Kimmel pointed that out and the hue and cry that followed is the same hue and cry that is followed over every criticism or every factual post that's been made about Charlie Kirk.

It's been weaponized by the far right.

People have been fired.

Shows have been canceled.

Groups and cities are threatened with being defunded.

That's not democracy.

That's autocracy.

We currently don't have an ironclad First Amendment in this country.

Now, Jimmy Kimmel, that was not a First Amendment case.

All right, the First Amendment protects you from government infringing on your rights.

You can still face consequences for what you're gonna say, but you would be less likely to face those consequences if it

didn't feel like the government was going to work to infringe on your First Amendment freedoms.

The kind of thing, you know, Derek Van Orden is doing right now.

Derek Van Orden had quite the interview with an Eau Claire TV station yesterday, and we're going to play some of that back in just a little bit.

So having set that up for you, let me tell you what else is coming up.

We will be talking to

political strategist Joseph Ecke about the dangerous political climate the far right has brought our nation to the precipice of.

We've also been brought to the precipice of stagflation and Sean O'Malley will give us the latest update on the Federal Reserve lowering interest rates not so much because of the pressure from Donald Trump but because Donald Trump has taken the best economy in the world and again brought us to the point where we have inflation and

soft employment in the country.

Probably the worst place you want to be if you're wanting to fix the American economy.

And yet here we are.

We also have a faction in this country that is decidedly anti-science, anti-vaccines of all things.

We'll meet with pediatrician Dr. Kelly Snooks who has a new video series raising Wisconsin on up north news social media sites.

Her latest report explains what vaccines actually do inside your body.

We will hear from Senator Tammy Baldwin who was part of a hearing yesterday with the now former director of the Centers for Disease Control about the political pressure brought on her to

say things that were not backed up by science and facts.

And when that wasn't the case, when she wasn't willing to do that, Robert Kennedy Jr.

told her get out.

That he needs totes there running the CDC.

And Senator Tammy Baldwin was part of the questioning in yesterday's hearing.

We're going to visit as well in our seven o'clock hour with a candidate for legislature, former Racine City Councilmember Trevor Young, who recently announced that he's running for a state Senate seat that's been held by a Republican for most of the past 14 years.

We'll have Sharita Booker telling us very shortly here about some weekend events you can hit around Wisconsin.

Chad Holmes will talk to us about stories he's following for civic media in the Wausau area.

Now, if you can't stick around for the full show, have we got a deal for you?

Take us along on the Civic Media app.

You can play it off your phone.

You can play it through Bluetooth on a wireless speaker.

You can play it through Bluetooth in your car and have us wherever you're going.

Also, get us on Spotify and have that show handy.

You can listen on demand anytime you like at a Spotify, Apple, wherever you get your podcasts.

Let's look at Brittany Merleau's state forecast for today.

It is a simple one, cooler and getting wetter.

Just in time for the weekend for today cloudy and spotty showers highs today a big range upper 60s up north to mid 80s down south and Then a light easterly breeze for tonight on and off rain and thunder lows tonight in the mid 50s up north 60s south and again a light easterly breeze Again, Sherida Booker will tell us about some fun events that you can hit this weekend as we come ever so close

to the weekend.

We're one day close.

We're almost Parker Olson who produces the show.

We're one day close.

We're almost there.

Almost has this week not just dragged along.

Oh, it's about to get a lot longer for me because I have a lot of stuff to do today.

See,

no rest for the weary.

That's that's exactly where we are.

But there's just no other

The only way through is forward, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

Unless you're going to take a sick day or vacation day and you know what, those, those just aren't allowed with this.

I got a to-do list so long.

Exactly.

That's the thing.

It

compounds.

You can't, you

know, I, I can't die because there's just all this stuff that's got to get done.

Who else is going to do this?

You know?

Yeah.

Who, who else?

You know what?

We can all, that means we're a replaceable patch.

I was going to say we can all be replaced.

Let's stop kidding ourselves here.

No, it reminds me of some advice that I've given some friends who as we've been talking about retirement yet, it's time for the old age chatter part of it.

And some people saying, Oh, I could never retire.

I just have I have so much to do.

Like now, no, no, no, there will always be somebody else to do it.

Now you want to do it.

But, you know, you've either left jobs in the past, or, you know, you've you've changed cities or, you know, whatever the case may be.

People have left jobs even with the longest to-do list and somebody else just comes in and does it.

That's the thing.

If you're not there, then they're going to have to find someone else to do it.

Don't

worry about it.

It's not on

you.

Do the best you can while you're doing it.

Just don't feel like you're tied to it for 24-7 the rest of your life.

Life is too short for that if we're learning anything about the world out there.

You've got to go out and enjoy things for yourself now.

You know, with that, I'm going to put these headphones down and I'm going to go to the beach.

I'll see you at least.

Yeah,

that's

yeah.

Get on that pontoon boat.

I'm just had a pontoon.

I'm heading to the airport now.

Back

to the Caribbean

now.

Yes.

Yes.

All right.

Well, before I talk myself into doing that, let's turn over to sports.

Brandon Woodruff.

He looked good last night, pitched five solid innings.

Let's see, he gave up only two hits and only one run, nine strikeouts.

He was a strikeout machine last night.

It was fun to watch him.

He's very, very wonderful.

Might be one of my favorite pictures to watch just because he, he doesn't just throw the ball.

He like, he pitches.

He knows where to locate stuff.

His sequencing is really good.

I think it's a really fun watch.

He really is.

And then, of course, it helps when you get some help from the offense.

Sal Freilich did that with a three run homer.

Blake Perkins tied a career high with five RBIs to lead the Brewers to a nine to two win over the Los Angeles Angels on Wednesday night.

The Angels, I mean, they were snake bit last night.

They're starting pitcher Jose Soriano.

He was already kind of struggling anyway.

And then Jake Bowers hits a line drive.

right off of his pitching arm.

Yeah, it came off the bat at 107 miles an hour.

And you're looking at that picture and you're like, you totally expect him to do the Rodney Dangerfield thing from caddy shack like, Oh, my arm, it's broken.

And for his arm to actually like fall off, it hit his arm that hard.

I can only imagine what that bruise is going to look like when he wakes up this

morning.

Oh, gosh, yeah, I didn't realize that I hit his arm.

I thought I hit him like in the hip, which

I know I think would hurt more.

Uh, well, yeah.

Well, if it hit you, it could have hit you right on the point of the elbow, but thankfully, uh, X-rays were negative.

So nothing's broken, but he's going to be bruised for a little bit.

So he had to come out of the game in the second inning.

And it's that made it tough for the angels.

It feels a little rare to me that you see a pitcher or any player really not try to argue their way back into a game.

And he was like, love off, had off.

Nope.

I'm done.

Go to the.

I'm out of

here.

I do see that more often now where players know well enough like no, I'm not don't don't do the rub some dirt on it This is this is serious and they just go nope

No, that's fine.

So the series with the angels will wrap up tonight.

Again, it's three night games.

And so Quinn Priester will start game three coverage will begin at 605 on several civic media radio stations.

And then after tonight's game, they had right to St.

Louis no day off.

And it's not a day game today, giving them time to travel.

They just had right to St.

Louis tonight for a three game series that starts right away tomorrow.

And then after those Friday, Saturday, Sunday games, they had a right to

San Diego for games on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then they finally come home for the final homestand of the season, I believe, if I'm not mistaken.

And you can win tickets to that tomorrow because tomorrow is Parker.

The final free ticket Friday.

Wow, that's just like we rehearsed it.

That's awesome.

Yes, free ticket Friday.

One more time tomorrow, your chance to get some seats at American Family Field for free.

you are not going to be able to do that pretty

much

for the rest of this season and the postseason.

So somebody's going to get free tickets to a an upcoming brewers game as part of free ticket Friday.

If you are new to this, go get the civic media app, get that on your phone and

Tomorrow we will give you a keyword here and then other keywords throughout the day on different shows and then you use the text feature on the civic media app and text us the keyword and you are Part of a statewide entry one lucky winner will be pulled to get tickets to a future brewers game But again, you can hear the brewers on civic media coming up tonight

And then we've got the Packers who are playing this coming Sunday at Cleveland at noon.

And this is one of those games when it's early in the season, when it's fall, and it might be beautiful out there where, you know, the TV ratings could be way up there.

Or if it's a gorgeous fall weekend, nothing,

nothing for

the TV people because they're all listening on the radio.

And we've got

pregame coverage starting at 10 a.m.

Sunday on stations in Richland Center, Park Falls, Racine, and Wathoma.

So head over to Civic Media to learn more.

And of course, you got the Badger football team.

They opened the Big Ten part of their schedule on Saturday, hosting Maryland 11 a.m.

kickoff, 9 a.m.

pregame on several stations of the Civic Media radio

network.

What was that?

I'm

worried.

Oh, you're worried about the Badgers?

Yeah.

Well, look, they won the first two games of the season,

and

you've made the bold prediction that they're going to win three.

So all they got to do is win against Maryland this weekend, and then they can coast the rest of the way through, right?

Doesn't it

work like that?

Maybe not exactly like that.

All right, coming up in just a bit, we'll talk to Sharita Booker, social media manager here at Up North News as we go through some of the big events of the weekend.

We'll have today's history lesson and the unusual remarks, well, they've become usual remarks for Congressman Derek Van Orden, unusual if you're big on things like, you know, the First Amendment.

From the heart of America's Up North, live from Lake Basota, thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.

I'm Pat Critello.

This is the Civic Media Radio

Network.

Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.

Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get

started.

Sharita Booker, Sharita, welcome.

No pressure, but boy, a lot of people are going to be paying attention to you this week.

Are they not?

Yeah, yeah, because here's the thing.

We'd never been to the Eau Claire Fall Festival, and we went last weekend.

Sherri wanted to go, and I said, why, where did this idea come from?

We've never gone to that before.

Well, Sharita made it sound fun.

Sharita hasn't been there.

She's just telling you about it.

She's like, Sharita makes everything sound fun.

I want to go to all the stuff she talks about.

So for this week, but now have a fan amongst the radio audience.

I mean, I thought it would be the guy she was married to.

It turns out to be you.

So now no pressure, you really got to sell this.

So we're going to start

We're gonna start with a challenge and I want you to sell us on the Viola Horse and Cult Show as we head to Viola southeast of Verrocua for whatever's happening there this weekend.

It's all yours, Sharita.

And so it'll be Viola's 94th annual Horse and Cult Show and it's a family tradition that's free for everyone and this event will feature a horse show, a ranch rodeo, a horse pool, a tractor and truck pool, arts and crafts.

Arts and crafts fair and a carnival for the kids and there will also be local food and live music and admission for this event is free like I said before and if you want more information on some details you can go to wp.horseandcultshow.com

WP dot horse and cult show.com.

And under the live entertainment for Friday night, they've got listed high mileage after the tractor pole.

And then on Saturday night, I like this one.

And I'm sure this guy's never heard it before, the Tim Daniels band.

I'm sure Charlie Daniels has a little brother or something, but the Tim Daniels ban following the conclusion of the tracker poll on Saturday.

So that there's a parade and everything else.

You've sold me on it, Sharita.

I would go.

This next one you don't have to sell me on.

It involves bacon.

And for it, we have to go to River Falls.

Yep.

And that kicks off.

The River Falls Bacon Fest kicks off tomorrow at Heritage Park and runs through Sunday.

The event is free and you'll find everything from sweet to savory bacon inspired dishes, pig themed contest, live music, a vendor fair, a beer garden, and family friendly activities all weekend long.

In the center of the fest is where you'll find the Bacon Central.

They'll have bacon flights and this year's flavor lineup is sweet and smoky, honey habanero,

Mindful Ranch and Buffalo and the weekend will wrap up with downtown car crews from 11 to 4 p.m.

On Main Street and that will be filled with classic cars hot rods and custom rides and for more information on that event visit rfchamber.com slash bacon dash

bash

Again, that's the River Falls.

That's where the RF comes from.

rfchamber.com will get you there.

And also a bacon flight.

It's a

bacon

flight people with all those flavors that you just mentioned, which by the way, I have to tell you about my college buddy, Kevin.

He, when he was living in somewhere in Iowa, I want to say Ames, he helped organize a neighborhood thing where it wasn't just your regular neighborhood block party, street party thing.

there was always, it was a bacon fest right there on the street.

And everybody had to make some kind of a dish that involved bacon.

I love bacon.

So I love living in the neighborhood.

Great.

An idea is that.

So I don't believe that Kevin trademarked that.

So y'all go right ahead and steal that and then go get over to River Falls for the bacon bash.

And we're going to conclude in Cedarburg, right?

Where they have

more than their share of festivals and I think the wine and harvest one might be the might be the granddaddy of

them.

Yep and that one's coming up this Saturday and Sunday and is located in its historic downtown Cedarburg.

There will be plenty of award-winning wine from Cedar Creek Winery and the festival include

food stands and food trucks and you can shop at the marketplace filled with locally produced items like honey, cookies, candles, soaps, and more.

There will also be a family fall fest located at Cedar Creek Park that includes a live mermaid, a bubble artist, a bounce house, face painting, and bumper boats.

There will also be a giant pumpkin charity regatta

That will take place on Sunday where racers paddle 700 pound pumpkins across Cedar Creek to raise money for local charities.

And the annual GrapeStomp competition where teams of four race against the clock to stomp as many grapes as they can will be taking place both Saturday and Sunday at 1 and 3 p.m.

The festival is free to attend and for more information visit cedarburgfestivals.org

cedarburgfestivals.org.

Yeah, the paddling in giant pumpkins has me a little concerned, but I'm sure they haven't lost anybody yet to that.

And of course, all of that is on top of a whole bunch of Oktoberfest celebrations.

Of course, there's Oktoberfest here in Chippewa Falls, Friday and Saturday.

Waukesha, Manitowoc, Burlington, Stevens Point, three lakes all have Oktoberfest.

And as we mentioned before, in Elkhart Lake, they have Elkhtoberfest.

very nice.

I really like what they did there.

There's the Waukesha Apple Harvest Festival, the Brentwood Chili Cook Off, Bondiwell Founders Day, Fall Arama in Wapaka, the Downtown Bullet Fall Festival.

And we, Parker and I agreed this is our favorite one for this weekend, the Atomic Voodoo Rockabilly Meltdown in Edgerton on Saturday.

That's interesting.

That's a mouthful right there.

travelwisconsin.com will get you to all these things, especially the ones that Sherida Booker highlights for us every week at this time.

Sherida, thank you as always.

Have a great weekend.

You too, Pat.

All right, so getting back Parker to Oktoberfest, I know we can't get you up here.

Have you, have you polka danced at all?

You ever do a polka or waltz?

I do not believe I have no.

Okay, all right.

Well, you, you could get your opportunity at any of these polka.

you know, Oktoberfest things.

The one in Chippewa Falls here that kicks off tomorrow.

The bands there include the Rhythm Playboys, North of Dixie, the Mississippi Valley Dutchman, Gary's Ridgland Dutchman, which I'm sure they are at every Oktoberfest everywhere.

The Hayes Boys Orchestra and the Bear Creek Band, all playing in Friday at the Northern Wisconsin State Fairgrounds.

Then on Saturday, the Mike Schneider Band, Homegrown Tomatoes, the Copper Box Band, Six Figure Sunrise, Polka Riotti,

and the Charlie Jussman Band.

All that coming up, head over to Chippewa Falls Oktoberfest on the Northern Wisconsin State Fairgrounds.

Today's history lesson is on the way, including some premieres.

WKRP, for example.

What year did that premiere on CBS?

The answer coming up next.

You're up north.

he was not intoxicated could not explain his nudity.

Well the answer to today's history trivia question is 1978 it was on September 18th 1978 that WKRP in Cincinnati a little TV series about a radio station switching formats from easy listening to rock made its debut on CBS Polarity

ensues.

I had no idea what that show was about.

I just knew that it was like a radio station and that's about it.

The only thing I've ever known about that show is the turkey bombing.

Of course, yes.

No, there was so much.

The entire premise of the show was that it was this struggling little station that was playing.

Beautiful music was the format name at the time.

We now call it elevator music.

And that's, you know, what we're supposed to be in this, this new program director comes in to shake things up, let some play rock and roll to try to get up in the ratings.

And then there's all kinds of hijinks.

I see, you know, elevator, cap times, idea fest, they had excellent elevator music.

Did they now I got a Xomers domini can all attest it was fantastic

All right, we got to find that out Roger puts on Facebook the first song that dr. Johnny fever played on WKRP was Queen of the Forest by Ted Nugent and it's a it's a great scene where you know

Johnny is told that he can now start spinning rock and roll records.

And so he takes the needle on the classical music record and just scratches it right across there, breaks the record in half, puts on the Ted Nugent record and lets it go.

It's just one of, it is one of the better show beginnings to a series.

If you ever want to establish the premise for something, that's where you go.

So

WKRP.

Way to establish

rock.

That's exactly it.

Okay, let's see.

So we're doing kind of this the season of TV premieres and it was on this day in 1965 that NBC premiered a new sitcom starring Barbara Eden as a genie and Larry Hagman as an astronaut who becomes her master.

The I Dream of Genie.

Again, that premiered 60 years ago today.

Let's see, I have another one here.

Yeah, the Atmos family premiered on this day in 1964 on CBS.

Speaking of CBS, before TV, it started as a radio network, and the radio network began on this day in 1927, heard on 18 stations originally, and then of course, spreading across the country.

The New York Times first published on this day in 1851.

It was first called The New York Daily Times and then later changed its name to simply The New York Times.

So back to I Dream of Genie since we heard the theme there just now.

Larry Hagman played an astronaut who I would assume was in the Air Force since many of them were.

And it's worth noting that the Air Force has a birthday today.

On this day in 1947, the National Security Act takes effect.

It was a post-war reorganization of the U.S.

military that marked the beginning of the U.S.

Air Force, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council, and the U.S.

Department of Defense, which is still its official name, despite whatever branding a war-mongering president would want it to be.

It is still the Defense Department.

The number one song this week in 1961 was written by Carol King and Jerry Goffin and sung by Bobby V.

Again,

that was 1961 that this was the number one song.

Happy birthday to Frankie Avalon, who had a lot of hits back in that era.

He is 85 years old today.

It's a bit of a melancholy day for Cubs fans, Ryan Sandberg, who passed away in late July.

He would have been 66 years old today.

On a somewhat related note, the Ken Burns Documentary Mini Series Baseball premiered on PBS on this day in 1994 and would go on to win the Emmy for Outstanding Informational Series.

Did you ever watch the Ken Burns Baseball Series?

No, I haven't.

I'm interested.

I mean MLB Network runs it all the time in the offseason.

And obviously, because it's historical, it's about baseball, it still stands the test of time, obviously.

You can watch it today and be just as impressed as 31 years ago when it came out.

I highly recommend it.

So it's like original, like old, old baseball or like what's

going on in

the 70s?

Yeah.

No, no.

It is the history of the beginnings of baseball all the way through, you know, say the 70s or 80s.

I forget where he stopped.

Sure.

But yeah, a very, very outstanding series.

On this day in 1987 was the release of the Thriller Fatal Attractions starring Michael Douglas and Glenn Close.

Pet rabbits everywhere still shudder whenever that film gets mentioned and I don't know that I can really spoil it for you Parker if you're not familiar with what I'm talking about.

Okay then.

People who have seen fatal attraction and I mentioned bunny rabbits they they know exactly what happens to what happens to your pet rabbit when daddy has an affair.

Anyway, happy birthday to yeah I'm just gonna leave you hanging there you got it you got to watch it.

Joanne Catharall is 63 years old today.

You don't know her name, but you know the group, the Human League.

That

would be Joanne Catharall.

63 today, formerly worked as a waitress in a cocktail bar, but now is living her life on her own, either with or without you.

Aisha Tyler is 55 years old today.

Jason Sedakis is 50 today.

The person that you may know from Saturday Night Live or if you were fortunate enough to watch the show, Ted Lasso.

I don't know if it's just that he's that good at playing the character or Jason Sedakis just wasn't that much of a household name.

But I sometimes have to catch myself and go, now wait a minute, who's the actor that played Ted Lasso?

I'm like, oh yeah, it's Jason Sudeikis from Saturday Night Live.

But I mean, he just so immerses himself into that character.

Every clip I have ever seen of Ted Lasso has made me go, this is genuinely a guy who has zero idea

what

he's

doing.

And it's so fun.

Great premise for the series here.

On this day in 1938,

The Chicago Bears beat the Green Bay Packers two to nothing.

At that point in 1938, it was the fifth time an NFL game had ended two to nothing, but it hasn't happened since.

Really?

Yeah.

Oh, I love

that.

There's a name for foot games, final scores in football games.

Scorigami.

Is it Scorigami?

Scorigami.

Yeah.

I'm a

huge fan of Scoragami.

Are you really?

Oh yeah.

It strikes all the different ways that a football game could end, and every so often a score combination comes up and a football game has never ended in that score before.

I

can't remember which team it is.

I want to say it's North Texas, the college football team, and they're like media guide on game

day.

They have a chart.

of Scoragami for their program.

I like it.

I'm a nerd for that

stuff.

I'm looking at the chart right now, and I'm trying to look for one that you wouldn't expect.

Here's one, 32 to 15.

So no football game has ever ended 32-15.

And so when it does, people make a big deal about it, like, Scoragami!

Never happened.

Man, we get excited about the little things, don't we?

We have

to.

All right.

Let's get back to the music history back to 2010 when Katy Perry had the number one

hit.

This was Katy Perry's third number one hit again this day, 15 years ago.

And finally for music, James Marsden.

And I know what some of you are thinking, James Marsden singing?

Yeah.

I mean, before you saw him in Paradise, which is the current series he's in, where he plays a president of the United States.

And before X-Men and 27 dresses and somewhere around the time he was doing Party of Five, he was in the movie Hairspray, playing kind of a Dick Clark type guy leading their version of American Bandstand.

So there you go James Marsden.

He can sing.

Yeah,

that's actually

good.

That's from hairspray and hairspray is a delightful movie.

I've never seen the play.

Yeah, but a really nice movie.

I've never seen it.

I should.

I know Tifa is in it.

Zach Efron.

Yeah, just a really, really nice little weekend escape movie if you get if you see it come up on TV on the National Day calendar.

This is International Equal Pay Day.

This is Locate an Old Friend Day, although I would remind you what I just said about fatal attraction, so be careful which old friends you look up, okay?

This is also National Cheeseburger Day, and as a result, McDonald's has 50 cent cheeseburgers, but there's

a

catch.

You got to order them through the app.

And

I like

a lot of apps.

I use a ton of apps.

I have just had the worst luck with the McDonald's app over the years, where an order gets lost, or you think you have to put it in a second time, and then there's two orders waiting there for you.

And I'm not a dumb guy.

I can work an app.

We can clip that.

I saw the 50 cent burgers.

I'm like, hey, that's oh, through the app.

No, that's a terrible place.

There are also.

National Cheeseburger Day specials at Burger King, Dairy Queen, Applebee's, Red Robin, Sonic, and I'm sure more.

All right, 646 the time right now in entertainment news.

Let me get my 11 oversized mug here.

What do you got?

What do you want to pitch us on today?

What's today's big entertainment story?

Oh, God, do you want to hear about Kanye West?

Do

I want

to?

Yeah,

I'm not entirely sure that we want to, but you know what?

He's in the news right now because he has a documentary coming out tomorrow.

Apparently it is awful, as you may expect.

One of the quotes reviewing it was it's like watching a car wreck in slow motion for two hours.

So

as you may expect for the Kanye West, anything.

So I guess, I mean,

Was this, did he take part in it?

Was he like a producer of it or something?

I don't entirely know.

Apparently most of it was shot on iPhone, which I don't entirely get.

Okay.

But yeah, he, there's like, it captures everything from like the last couple of years, everything from like his very not good politics to his apparent presidential run and just weird encounters with other celebrities.

It seems like a weird thing that I don't think I want to spend my time on.

Yeah, the documentary is called In Whose Name.

It was done by Nicholas Ballestero, who filmed Kanye West over six years.

Yeah,

it's like 3000 hours.

Shouldn't we give him like a prize for that?

Just for following Kanye around?

I mean, because again, look, I know if there's a song or two I like, I know that I watched TMZ enough to know that he is, he is something.

He's really something.

And I can take that in small doses.

But through six years of following him for a documentary, where are we going to see this thing?

Is it Oh, it's it's in theaters, it says here.

Oh, I didn't even actually look at that part, because frankly, I was so out on it that I didn't want to look.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, I don't know.

I think it ends either right at or certainly just before last year when he released a song, Kanye did called Heil Hitler.

So again, there's a complex man and I'll bet it's a complex documentary.

And if you want to pay to see it in theaters, there'll be my gas.

There's an opportunity there for you.

Yeah.

So there you go.

Thanks for pitching today's entertainment story of the day.

We will be talking to a candidate for state Senate from the Racine area in our next hour along with pediatrician Dr. Kelly Snooks about vaccines.

I'm Pac right low.

This is the Civic Media Radio

Network.

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Welcome back.

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We have a weekday version and a Sunday version as well.

The Sunday version includes our question of the week and this week's question laid out four of the better known conspiracy theories that Senator Ron Johnson likes to spread.

Which of them would you like to hear him stop talking about forever?

And the fact that there was not in all of the above response did not sit well with a lot of people.

And of course, one of them is the tremendous and gross disservice he's done to the American public during the pandemic and the thing, the conspiracies that he has been spreading.

Of course, we now live in an age where a conspiracy theorist and vaccine doubter denier

is in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy Jr.

And that was the focus of a hearing yesterday when senators heard from Susan Monarez, a Wisconsin native who had been head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC, for barely a month before she was out after refusing to go along with Robert Kennedy Jr.'

's demands that she embrace conclusions

and talking points that did not have science and data to back them up.

It was a sometimes testy Senate committee hearing writes the New York Times as Menorah Menorah's talked about the ways that Kennedy had abandoned science in his ongoing dismantling of longstanding vaccine policy.

Republicans meanwhile, continued to

claimed that the CDC is what made the problem worse because in those early months of the pandemic when there was a lot of uncertainty out there, and it was noted at the time there was a lot of uncertainty out there, but apparently that lack of instant certainty helped to undermine public confidence in the CDC, though one could argue there were plenty of politicians who fueled that as well.

Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin was part of the panel and talked to Susan Minarez and also to Dr. Deborah Howary, the CDC's former chief medical officer, who quit in solidarity when Minarez was let go.

And here is Senator Tammy Baldwin talking to Susan Minarez and then to Dr. Linda Horry.

Despite his proclamations of radical transparency, Secretary Kennedy has consistently failed to provide information to Congress as he continues to undermine public health from his role in the Trump administration.

You've heard from me before, having Secretary Kennedy in charge of the health of Americans is dangerous.

And what we're hearing from you today really underscores this for me.

Dr. Minarez, did Secretary Kennedy ever give you instructions on how you should interact with members of Congress?

He did.

I had reached out to the committee to share my concerns.

Secretary Kennedy became aware of that, and he was very concerned that I had spoken to members of Congress, and he told me I was never to do it again.

Congress and the American people need to know what is happening at the CDC, and this censorship is not radical transparency, and it is unacceptable.

In Wisconsin, there are currently 36 cases of measles, all in unvaccinated individuals, 22 of whom are children.

Dr. Ari, you have seen firsthand in the ER,

what vaccine preventable disease can do.

What would an increase in vaccine preventable diseases mean for children and families across the country?

It's going to be heartbreaking.

Not only will it overwhelm our health care system, but children will have, some of them will be deaf.

You know, we've seen congenital measles cases in the U.S.

and I think what concerns me is these aren't harmless diseases.

We just saw the case in California of a young child that died of encephalitis from years after measles.

These diseases have long-term consequences, and we don't need, in the U.S., we have gone so far in reversing this.

We don't want our children to die.

That, again, was audio from a Senate committee here in yesterday, Tammy Baldwin talking to the former head of the Centers for Disease Control, and also to the chief medical officer at the CDC.

Now, let's be fair and provide the response from the current spokesperson for the Health and Human Services Department, who of course works for Robert Kennedy Jr.

and Donald Trump.

And give a listen to this statement and tell me which one you think is better represented of science and health and the facts.

Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for Health and Human Services, said in an email that Dr. Manares was fired, quote,

for declaring herself untrustworthy to the secretary and acting maliciously to undermine the president's agenda.

Again, that was the reason Dr. Minarez was fired from heading the CDC.

Untrustworthy to the secretary and acting maliciously to undermine the president's agenda.

What is the president's agenda at this point?

One must ask in all earnestness.

Is the president's agenda to so substantially undermine public health that we again have children dying of the measles in this country?

Is it really worth it to gain the reins of power by sowing that much mistrust and making yourself appear to be above, you know, doctors, scientists, researchers?

And yet you had Republicans on the committee, again, repeating their criticisms of pandemic era guidance on vaccines and other measures saying that it helped to foster vaccine hesitancy and distrust.

No, it didn't.

They did.

The politicians did.

The anti-science people did.

There is a chasm between Americans right now, not based on party necessarily,

not based on ideology, not based on urban versus rural, but on those who, for some ungodly reason, were against basic safeguards to keep people alive in a pandemic, and the rest of us who will probably never forgive them for the extra misery and deaths that they caused playing politics with a pandemic.

And it continues to this day.

We will talk to Dr. Kelly Snooks about vaccines in our next hour.

I'm Pat Crightlow from Up North News.

This is the Civic Media Radio

Network.

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