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Across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Critewell powered by Up North News.
Now, from his daughter's guest room or office, I don't know, next to his grandson, the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Critewell.
Just
like we scripted it.
I just smooth as butter.
Good morning.
Welcome back.
Nice to have you here on this Monday morning, October 6th.
Yes, I'm down here in Dallas, Fort Worth, along with Selena Heller from Up North News up in Eau Claire.
Dr. Kristen Lyrely is here as well.
Dr. Lyrely was was going to do a Beyonce worthy costume change as part of the show.
He was now in a Brewer's jersey.
Yes.
There we go.
Ready to go.
She was encouraged by producer Parker Olson, who is in a Peru's t-shirt ready for Game 2 of the National League Division series tonight.
That'll be a later game.
Pre-game begins at 7.35 on some of the stations of the Civic Media Radio Network.
First pitch a little after 8 o'clock tonight and Sleepy Patton Parker will tell you all about the game tomorrow morning, depending on how late they stay up.
Yes.
Let's see.
Rob from Tigerton says, Pad, you're going to visit the South Fork Ranch where they filmed the TV show Dallas?
Probably not.
I did.
I did talk earlier about getting to a retro arcade yesterday with all kinds of video games from 40 years ago.
it was so fun.
It sounds like frogger.
Did
you do frog or Donkey Kong?
Frogger, Donkey Kong, Centipede, Gallagher, you know, all the Pac Man's it was it was so fun.
Did you walk up and put your quarter on the screen?
No, you didn't have to you paid at the door and then everybody just paid, you know, whatever, you know, or you just played as much as you want.
They've included the old style bubble hockey game, you know, with the big bubble over the top and
you're
flipping and shooting the puck around.
And it's out that the, the, the six year old grandson, who, you know, his dad works for hockey team and he's learning the skate.
He's got his stick and all that.
And he turns out to be a pretty good hockey player for the, for the game too.
So he knows what he's doing.
Tarzan writes, Robin is cloudy in 55 with a few light rain showers.
It was a relaxing weekend enjoying the extended summer season.
Took pictures of the fall colors and the leaves are coming down.
And he says, I spent the weekend.
washing my hoodies and sweatshirts that I've had in the truck, which is my second closet.
Also notes yesterday in the NFL, the only two undefeated teams lost that would be the Philadelphia Eagles and the Buffalo Bills.
So we don't have an issue with that anymore.
Packers, of course, were on a buy and they will be back in action next Sunday afternoon here.
But Kristen, you already mentioned that with the Packers not playing and the gorgeous weekend that you did way too much yard work that
somebody would normally do in your frail condition.
And Selena, what about you for the enjoyment of the weekend when you weren't taking your kid to a Taylor Swift movie?
She said it was about superstitions like knocking on wood.
That's what Taylor Swift said.
So
when she talked about knocking on wood in that song.
Yes, it was about superstitions.
We went camping.
You let her keep thinking that as long as she can.
That's all I can say.
It was a beautiful weekend camping.
That's what we did.
Emery even went in the water yesterday, October 4th.
Ooh,
it
was cold.
A
little off the lee side here.
All
right.
It was weird to look at the trees changing and hear the leaves rustling and feel the temperature in the sun.
It was just so like not, it just didn't fit.
I
walked around
the campground.
Yeah.
I
walked around the campground at night.
It was so nice.
It was just like a summer night and just walk and walk.
I just walked and walked and walked because it was just so nice and it was just, yeah, kind of weird, but it was beautiful to be outside the whole weekend camping.
We went after the retro arcade.
We went to a food truck place.
And it's kind of a permanent setup with these food trucks and tables.
And they're not so much tables, they're the big spools, you know, for like
lane cable or rope or whatever.
And so many different ways to get heartburn.
I mean, either from the taco truck or the quesadilla truck or the burrito truck.
Your view on life is so interesting.
It gives you
heartburn.
Yeah.
It's not the truck.
I travel with plenty of pepsin.
I will be just fine.
So.
We should talk.
I'm going to talk.
I know you don't
listen to your wife, but I think you'll listen to me.
Uh, look, I've got two gynecologists whose opinions I respect.
Not a lot of men can say that.
So we can worry about the heartburn later.
Uh, what, what other advice were you giving on the Dr. Kristen Lyrely show, which is now statewide Saturdays at noon across the civic media radio network?
So much fun.
And on YouTube, if you want to watch the video, which is the fun way to do it, because it's me and Dr. Laura Hanks of Laura Hanks at your cervix.
We just gyno-talked.
We talked about abnormal uterine bleeding and trans care and the abortion pause in Wisconsin.
All the things that we usually talk about, but you get to be part of the conversation.
It's rich.
Trust me, as the spouse of a gynecologist, I've, yeah, I've listened to many of these conversations and while they may not necessarily apply to me, it might to somebody that you know and love and care about and might encourage them to go see a doctor on their own.
So give a listen to the Dr. Crispin Lairley show on the weekends there.
And Selina's been working on various news stories, of course, for Up North News and one of the most recent ones deals with cuts that are coming
to various health care programs.
And so we're going to play Selena's most recent story.
And so I'm going to have her set it up.
And then we're going to play the story itself that you can, you can watch it, the video version over at the upper new social media sites.
So Selena, tell us all about who you talked to.
Well, so this is about that kind of the
stalemate that's largely centered around what's going on in the a lot of money in enhanced and affordable care act subsidies and so this is Kate Bausch and she is a retired artist from La Crosse and she and her husband who is a retired teacher of 38 years they kind of plan their retirement around the affordable care act and they're two years out of
Medicare, so they have a couple years left, so this is kind of talking about how she's worried about things coming up and what she'll have to pay, what they'll have to pay.
coming.
Yeah, because again, the Affordable Care Act was designed for this where you're not quite old enough for Medicare, but you might not be working or you might be working in a job that doesn't provide health insurance coverage.
This is an affordable way to get it.
So here's Selena Heller's report about that.
The uncertainty I can't tell you unbearable.
It's been to not know.
if we're gonna have health care next year or what it's gonna cost.
In La Crosse, Kate Bausch and her husband are retired but two years shy of qualifying for Medicare.
So using the Affordable Care Act marketplace for their health care is a must for them.
It's not free.
We pay $476.
I think some people think like if you're on the ACA that it's free and it's not.
I mean we still pay and we're happy to pay.
Their monthly premium is set to skyrocket, though, as Republicans in DC appear willing to let the tax credits that make ACA coverage more affordable expire.
Kate says the uncertainty of what will happen with these subsidies is enough to put anyone on edge.
We started checking around because if the credits were going to expire, we needed to be covered and we like to be prepared.
So we were quoted upwards of $2,400 a month through a retirement for the state retirement workers.
And we can't afford $2,400 a month.
If these credits expire, I'm not sure what we will do.
Unless Republicans join Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin and her Democratic colleagues in supporting an extension, the tax credits will expire at the end of the year.
And that means out-of-pocket premiums for ACA marketplace enrollees could go up 75% according to the research group Kaiser Family Foundation.
This tax break...
called the Enhanced Premium Tax Credit, saves more than 230,000 Wisconsinites, an average of $500 every single month.
We both have
to be on medicine.
It's not just doctor visits and that kind of thing.
I have asthma and my husband does too.
Our inhalers are $500 a month.
We're just not sure what we'll do.
Senator Baldwin says if tax credits for the wealthy and corporations can be included in the budget, there's certainly legroom for extending tax credits for conscientious families.
We're looking at, obviously, no Christmas presents that we'll be shopping for this year or next year, probably.
We're hoping to take some trips just around the state.
We live pretty simply.
I'm really sorry I didn't expect to cry, but it's real.
And that's the bottom line, Selena.
This is real.
We talk about, you know, these these cuts as if they're just some numbers in a budget.
But these affect all kinds of folks and understandably, they're getting downright emotional about what may lie ahead.
Yeah, and I was reading last night the comments on our social media pages with this story.
And there are so many people in the same boat.
commenting like, that's me, that's me, that's me.
And they're worried too, there's so many people at small business owners too that are on the ACA this similar situation.
So it is real people and that's why this illustrates that it's just she's just a regular simple person retired in La Crosse and her and her husband are going to be struggling.
And Dr. Lirely knows just as well, the patients who come in and either have delayed care because they don't have coverage or, you know, have to get care.
And that leads to, you know, bills that they can't pay and uncompensated care, Kristen.
I'm profoundly worried because
As we continue to march toward November 1st, when people are starting to see what their premiums and their health care costs are going to look like for next year, it's going to hit home and it's going to be very real.
I've made a number of videos on my social media account just talking about what to expect and I don't think people realize what's around the corner.
The pushback has been really ugly and very political.
because that is how it's been positioned by the right wing, that this is just a political play.
But the truth is, this is your health care.
This is your health.
This is your future.
And if you can't get health care, you're not going to get care.
You're going to end up in the emergency department.
You're not going to be able to afford it.
You could end up going bankrupt, and you could end up with a terrible health outcome that could affect the trajectory of your life.
And that's where, again, from that political standpoint, it certainly appears to some like conservatives are overplaying their hand that, you know, the so-called fiscal conservatives saying, well, we've got to cut government, we've got to cut government spending.
Yeah, but there's all kinds of folks who maybe have voted conservative and who maybe thought that until the cuts come home to them.
And they understand that they will not be able to afford health insurance.
And then
to really make things worse for people, they are beginning to understand this is not saving taxpayer money.
This is simply moving money from our tax dollars, which had gone to credits that made health insurance more affordable to tax cuts for billionaires.
There's no actual savings going on here.
It's literally just a transfer of our tax dollars from helping us.
to billionaires.
And Kristen, that's where I feel that there are still plenty of people who either typically vote Republican or somewhere in the middle who are going to go, I am not good with this.
I think most of us just want to be able to get through the day.
to afford food, to afford housing, to afford health care, to maybe take a vacation every once in a while.
We're not fancy, but to hear somebody like Ron Johnson talk about the deficit, not wanting to pass the budget initially because there was too much of a deficit, but then capitulating to Donald Trump and actually passing a budget with a huge deficit because it's a giveaway to wealthy people and costing you your health care benefits, your ability to receive quality, affordable health care and
it will shut rural hospitals down.
We know this.
So it's going to have a huge impact on us, on the people of Wisconsin.
And I think as we start to see more people realizing this, more people are going to want to come to the table and have these conversations.
And we're here for it.
And it's not just the Affordable Care Act coming up in about 15 minutes.
We're going to be talking to somebody who knows all about the cuts that are coming to the Wisconsin Death Blind Technical Assistance Program.
Yes, this is cuts that are coming to the only program that helps with adaptive technology for deafblind children.
Who cuts things like that for deafblind children?
Oh, that's right.
It's President Trump and the Republican Congress.
That's coming up.
I'm Pat right.
Well, this is the Civic Media Radio Network.
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Hey, welcome back on a Monday morning.
It's October 6.
I'm down in Dallas, Texas for a few days here.
Kristen Lierly and Selina Heller with us for a few minutes more before we have a guest join us to talk about cuts to the death blind technical assistance program for children.
Yeah, that's that's a real thing that's happening here.
Let me just say that one other thing about being down here in Texas and I visited my daughter here a couple of times when she lived elsewhere in Texas This is my first real trip here in the Dallas area, but in in a couple of different areas they have infrastructure here that is I mean, I could only wish I just two words express lanes
You maybe see them in a few places.
Here, they're all over.
Obviously, they're toll roads, but they've got so much more land, of course.
There's nothing but land down here, lots and lots of land.
And so they can build like these full-size express lanes going down the middle of these interstates and
They're so nice.
We need more of these.
Just look around like if there could just be an express lane in Milwaukee to get you downtown and not have to worry
about all the
bottlenecks.
But again, how did we get to have these express lanes?
infrastructure.
We actually invested in infrastructure.
We invested in people and in transportation and in making it easier.
And now instead, like Selena's report just said, we're making these cuts to healthcare, infrastructure, education and everything else, just for tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.
It's just absolutely insane to me that this is what we're doing.
And Selena, your recent report there was one of only
you know, countless people you've been talking to who are really starting to feel these things who may have voted one way thinking, oh, they're going to cut all this waste, fraud and abuse.
But guess what?
What do I always say?
You're the waste they want to cut.
Yeah.
And I think that's now this might be the thing that is kind of turning people now.
I think I was reading that those comments to like, okay, now, yep, this is this is it.
They're taking they're hurting people with their health care.
And
And yeah, you think all those cuts like the whole departments like that money, oh, we're saving money and everybody's like, yeah, this is what we wanted.
Well, no, they don't realize where's that money going?
It's not going to help other things.
It's not going back into helpful programs.
That's not it.
I think we need to remember, though, as people living alongside of people who did not vote, who voted for Donald Trump.
They probably didn't vote for these cuts.
I highly doubt that they did.
And they're looking for an off-ramp.
And it's incumbent upon us as neighbors to give that to them.
We don't have to agree.
on the voting piece, but we do have to agree on how we move forward together because we can't do it without them.
And we all need a future so that we can build an infrastructure so that we can revive our education so that we can do all of those things that we know we need as a society.
We need them back and they're hurting right now.
They need us too.
And look, even if you just look at the standpoint of health alone, there were five different articles I sent to Dr. Lyley over the weekend that we should have talked about today.
I'm just going to read the headlines.
This is what this is where we're at.
These are the act.
These are actual headlines affecting women.
There's the FDA approving a new version of mipristone.
There's one headline and all male committee will decide South Carolina's abortion ban.
So we
have to talk about that.
Turning Point USA hosts a campus event pushing the death penalty for abortion patients.
One in four women in this country.
Their college students are running underground birth control networks because you
will save us all.
They're targeting birth control and woman denied miscarriage care in California.
Catholic hospitals.
That's another great thing that we need to talk about because it's a huge issue in Wisconsin.
We have more Catholic hospitals per capita than any other state.
And one sixth of our counties only have a Catholic hospital.
So if you want to get your tubes tied or get birth control or get anything that is healthcare that the Catholic doctrine does not allow, you can't get it.
And you probably don't know that.
No, you don't until it's too late.
And look, there, there were times when people could kind of, you know, wink, and you weren't getting your tubes tied, it was a procedure called a uterine isolation, you know, or something like that.
But you've got, again, right wingers who are micromanaging care more and more that
those kinds of options aren't available to doctors and their patients because you've got, you know, the legal staff of hospitals and clinics saying, nope, we can't, we can't do these things anymore unless of course your patient is so close to death and then I guess it's okay.
Heck of a way to run a healthcare system.
That's too late.
I mean, think about the consequences.
It's not just about how many moms die.
It's the morbidity.
It's the long term repercussions of having waited too long to solve these problems and to treat these people.
Mm hmm.
And so that's what we're faced.
Just again, this was just in the one area alone of things that we could get into, which again, she will get into on her own show, the Dr. Kristen Lyrely show.
What did do we talk about what you got coming next weekend?
We did it.
We're talking politics this weekend.
We're talking about all the congressional races in Wisconsin, where they stand and we're focusing on my favorite.
my favorite district, Wisconsin's eighth, all the good stuff, why it's important.
Things are juicy up here in northeast Wisconsin.
And they are ever-changing, yes.
And there's stuff happening in Salinas, half of the state, over in the western half as well, where I know State Senator Jeff Smith from Eau Claire is teasing some kind of an announcement for tomorrow that we'll hear all about.
So you've got no lack of things to cover
either.
Nope.
Oh, no.
No, and Mark Pocan is going to be in town, I believe also this week, I think tomorrow night.
And Jeff, yes, said his big announcement.
He wants everybody there tomorrow morning and just a big discussion on a lot of things I anticipate.
funny you you say that mark poke hand the congressman will be our guest on Thursday morning here on this program and then Wednesday morning we've got Chuck Collins of patriotic billionaires he's written this book burned by billionaires how concentrated wealth and power are ruining our lives and our planet.
So that'll be coming up on Wednesday.
But as always, nothing happens here until we get a good start to the week with Selena Heller and Dr. Kristen Lierly.
Thank you both so much.
Have a great day.
You too.
Have
a
great week, friends.
Coming up next, we will be talking about cuts to services for deafblind kids in Wisconsin, for real.
Next, this is the Civic Media Radio Network.
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I basically am asking people this week to be part of our first way too early.
poll for governor for next year and asking people, you know, who do they support at this point, knowing full well that there's lots of time before the August primary of next year.
But we're already getting quite a range of answers.
We've got people that see Stephen here says Missy Hughes is my choice.
Jack from Merrimack says my personal preference for governor would be Mandela Barnes.
Richard says I would vote for Josh Call because he has a track record of fighting for rights and standing up to the White House.
Sue H says Ben Wickler.
Lisa says my pick for governor would be Ryan Starnad, not a politician or a white collar businessman.
I think he's got some honest dirt under those fingernails.
Let's see from Herb.
My way to early pick would be Kelder Roy's.
Mark says Sarah Rodriguez is my first choice.
Len says state representative Francesca Hong and on and on it goes.
And so again, sign up for our newsletter and be among the first to answer our question of the week.
All right, our guest for this segment is telling us about, again, some of the types of cuts that are happening.
We've talked about on this show before, but again, they just don't feel real.
And so we want to talk again about
Who and why would you be making cuts to programs that help the deafblind community, including deafblind children?
Adrienne Clems is the executive director of a group that works with deafblind adults, but can tell us more about the deafblind technical assistance program for kids.
Adrienne is the executive director of the Center for Deafblind Persons and joins us now.
Adrienne, good morning.
How are you?
Good morning.
Good morning.
Great.
Thanks for the opportunity.
Good to be here.
Yeah, well, it's nice to have you here as well.
So let me again straighten out the differences between the two groups.
We're going to talk about cuts to the Wisconsin DeafBlind Technical Assistance Program.
Can you talk just a bit about more about what that is and then how that ties into the work you do at the Center for DeafBlind Persons?
Sure, absolutely.
So as you mentioned, Wisconsin Deafblind Technical Assistance Program, which to shorten it up and make it easier, WDB TAP is a program that has served deafblind children in the state of Wisconsin since the 1960s.
And they help deafblind children and their families basically from birth up to the age of 21.
And then once they're 21, that's where the Center for Deploying Persons can come into play.
If they so choose as adults to continue services, then they would come to us.
And we have, as you can imagine, a close working relationship with WDB TAP because as these kids get older and start nearing adulthood and they start learning about us and our services, sometimes they're referred over to us and then we start that process of working with them.
So it's been a very close working relationship through the years.
And as you can imagine, we were quite shocked when we got this news back in kind of late August that this might be happening.
And unfortunately that nightmare continues.
As I speak to you today, I literally don't know the status of the program.
I've tried to reach out a few times last week and haven't heard back.
I know that an appeal was filed and I had not heard news about what happened with that.
So as of right now, we're in a holding pattern as far as what happens for these young folks and their families throughout the state.
And we first heard about this in the context of cuts like this were done in this case for WDB TAP, the Wisconsin Deafblind Technical Assistance Program for Deafblind Children, where those cuts came through the Trump administration that was going after, again, so-called DEI programs.
Anything that singled out a group for special treatment, they said
needed to be cut.
And then those cuts, you know, those programs would be rolled into something else instead that didn't single out a group for special treatment.
This is, okay, this is just wild.
But I guess I'll ask you this way, Adrian, is there a group that that deafblind children could be folded into rather than the one that's benefiting them right now?
No, and this is what's frustrating is it's easy to throw around words and say things like that.
Like, you know, I saw the statement that said, well, they'll just be absorbed into other programs.
There is no other program.
And that's the stark reality.
And I think people need to understand that the Wisconsin DeafBlind Technical Assistance Program literally is, I believe, seven staff.
that were serving 170 families throughout the state of Wisconsin, and they were it.
That's the ballgame.
Those seven individuals have the specialized training to help those with dual sensory loss, and let's be clear, that's a unique challenge.
It's one thing.
I was born with a visual impairment, so I'm 51 years old and have lived life with a visual impairment.
Add to that, now suddenly your hearing is impacted, so both vision and hearing are gone.
You need specialized training to help those folks.
right?
And so there's no one else in the state of Wisconsin that has that training, just like at the Center for Deafblind Persons, we are the individuals that can work with deafblind adults.
So this notion that though, well, let's just be absorbed in another program.
Well, there is no other program.
And that's where, you know, people are left to drift.
And it's, it's terrifying, quite frankly.
We're talking to Adrian Cleansies, the executive director of the Center for Deafblind Persons.
And the technical assistance
part of the technical assistance program.
Can you talk a bit about that, the adaptive technologies and things that help, you know, deafblind children to be able to go to school, get an education and get through life?
Absolutely.
And you hit the nail on the head there.
So you talked about like assistive technology, like this thing here, the phone, we all take for granted.
But imagine again, vision impacted, hearing impacted,
And so technology is a wonderful tool and it continues to develop.
And so there are all kinds of resources out there to help deafblind children, deafblind adults be able to interact in day-to-day life, whether it be going to school, your job, just keeping in touch with friends and family.
So WDB TAP.
along with the Center for DeafBlind Persons, we had a collaborative relationship through a program called I Can Connect, which is also a federal program through the FCC.
Each state has a program, and in Wisconsin, the Center for DeafBlind Persons runs that program, and we worked very closely with WDB TAP, and there were funds that helped deafblind children and their families gain access to this assistive technology, and then training them how to use it, and then offering continued support.
as issues come up things break sometimes updates come through you need to learn how to use the technology and that's what they were able to do and we also helped them do that and that's just one little piece of what WDB TAP did but keep in mind this isn't also just helping the children and their families this is helping the educators as well because as I said
Very few people have this specialized training, so the WDBTAP staff could also work with teachers and teachers' aides and help them to work with these children in the schools.
And again, now that's gone.
And so then who helps these folks?
So we've got these basically technological marvels, even miracles.
I don't
think
it would be underselling it.
And the ability to do things that the generations prior could scarcely dream of.
And unfortunately, in the generations prior, children who were, you know, deaf, blind or both and or had other, you know, issues quite often were institutionalized.
And we've heard that word a lot lately about other cuts that are coming to Medicaid to badger care that help with with other vulnerable groups.
What is the concern for you if deaf, blind children in Wisconsin
suddenly no longer have access to the adaptive technology, to the to the educators, to everybody else, you know, in terms of their own quality of life.
That's a great question.
And I mean, if you think about it, I mean, imagine, you're on an island, and there's no one to help you.
And then suddenly, you're rescued, and then you're put back into society, and you don't have any knowledge about what is going on, like you're going to be lost.
So think of these young children.
as they're aging from birth up until 21 and they don't have those services and then suddenly they're adults and it's like okay here you go figure it out and that's what we're afraid of because right now you know previous to these cuts you know WDB TAP was there since the 1960s helping nurture these young people and as they got older if they still needed services they could come to the center if that's not there imagine what kind of shape people are going to be in as they get older and they try to
to find employment.
They want to continue their education.
I mean, there's just no support there.
So we're very worried about what happens when people come to us, you know, how far behind they're going to be.
And we have our own funding challenges.
So then, you know, trying to navigate that as well.
So it really is very concerning.
And I want to make clear, it's very important that people take the time to research and get facts because I've seen so many
you know, false things stated on social media.
And recently I was, you know, looking around online and trying to find answers like, where are things at?
And people were posting about, oh, there's, you know, these people or the staff are making so much money and they're only helping three kids.
I mean, the average salary, these people, you know, we're talking 40, 50 grand, you know, but they're saying, oh, they're making $150,000 a year and they're only serving three, three children.
No.
All these things are not true, and it's important that people have the facts here.
The folks that were serving deafblind children, they were not making a lot of money.
They're doing this because of the love and passion that they have, and they want to help people.
And it just breaks my heart to see the level of misinformation.
And again, back to the top, what you were saying, this false notion that, well, they'll just be absorbed elsewhere.
No, they fall through the cracks.
They're left without services.
the detriment there is just staggering to think about.
Adrian Tony puts a comment up on YouTube.
What is the positive vision for this problem?
What what should be happening?
What could be happening?
What is apart from not making the current cuts?
What else could be done to keep and improve the current program for deafblind children?
Well, that's a great question.
And first of all, I hope that people will make their voice heard and let legislators know, let the federal government know that these types of cuts are far reaching.
And again, I think it's important to recognize we're talking about for WDBTAP, their budget was $180,000.
So this notion that we're talking of millions of dollars is just untrue.
And so letting your voice be heard is one thing so that our elected officials know that this is not going to be tolerated.
I've seen people say, well, why don't you just get donations?
Absolutely.
I mean, as an executive director for a nonprofit, I've done this for 10 years with two different organizations.
Fundraising is huge, and we need support in that realm as well.
And we also need to make sure.
that people have all the facts.
As I said, there's so much misinformation going out there.
And when you have facts, then people aren't able to spread rumors.
I mean, so we need to get the facts out there that this is a program that helps up to 170 families.
This wasn't a huge program, millions of dollars.
There's a small staff that were helping people all over the state.
I think those are important things.
I mean, I hope people will contribute.
to nonprofit organizations like the Center for Deplined Persons or programs like WDBTab, it'd be great to be able to move away from the reliance on those dollars, but the reality is there are limited dollars and so we need that help and support.
So if people can donate, if people can make their voice heard, I think that will certainly help.
And just making sure that the facts are out there so that there aren't misconceptions that can really be harmful.
Adrian Cleans is the executive director for the Center for Deafblind Persons and talking to us about looming cuts for the Wisconsin Deafblind Technical Assistance Program.
Adrian, thank you so very much for
all of
this background.
It was great to visit with you and wish you all the best going forward.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for the opportunity.
You bet, Adrian.
Thank you very much.
We have more coming up in our next hour talking about these looming cuts to healthcare, to Medicaid, and more.
We will be talking to Megan Rowe from Opportunity, Wisconsin.
That's after the eight o'clock news.
I'm Pat Krightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
All right, welcome back.
It's a Monday morning.
It's October 6th, 2025.
Parker Olson is out in Madison studio a two and I'm down here in Dallas where the sun has finally come up here and Parker I gotta tell you what for the first you know couple of hours of a day it's it's kind of pleasant and reminded why why I lived you know down south for a couple of years in the Caribbean but again it's just for that hour or two after the sun first comes up and then not so much it's it gets real hot
real quick here and
I can't imagine that kind of heat that often.
I like warm, but I don't think that's going to quite be my cup of
tea.
I love seasons.
Well, three out of four anyway.
I'm not Winter's biggest fan.
But to have something other than just high heat all the time.
Yeah, that's a good thing.
I will I will definitely take advantage of that.
Let's see, I was checking out the mailbag here and on the text line from Jim and Brookfield.
Good morning, Pat.
Keep that Ice Age trail challenge on your bucket list.
My wife and daughter
completed the trail in sections over three years, traveling to many towns in Wisconsin, I would shuttle them to and from trail sections.
As they hiked, I biked because of my knee.
It was quite the adventure as we saw many remote and beautiful parts of the state.
They officially became 1000 milers.
And now I have a new knee.
So maybe you can do some of the, the hiking instead of the biking on there.
I think that would be nice.
And and look, whether
you mentioned biking and the Ice Age trail for hiking sounds great.
Like I said, I would like to do it even with my one not so great knee.
But then there's also the bike trails.
I mean, Wisconsin was really a pioneer in what's called rails to trails, where you had a lot of these rail lines that aren't being used anymore.
And you know, replacing them with with bike trails, some of them paved over some of them just, you know, crushed gravel.
But either way,
there's just so many ways to get around and maybe something you want to think about for this coming weekend when I'm sure fall colors are really going to start coming into their own.
Oh, at that point, you know, that would be nice.
It's getting
close to that time
here.
It's going to be really pretty.
And
I'm
a big thing.
Now you're in Madison and you know, again, more than plenty of trails around there going around the the lakes and things do you engage in that kind of
recreational biking or hiking or are you, um, you just moving from this chair to the next chair where you're going to watch some other screens, you
know, that might be true.
I might be going chair to chair very often in my life.
Yes.
Uh, my brother has gotten really big into biking though in the last like year or so he's doing like tons of bike rides and I don't really know if he's got to do it in a fall yet.
So he might be doing a lot of that kind of stuff, doing lake loops and stuff like that around here, getting some fall colors in.
Okay.
While we're talking about Madison, of course, you've got the Badger football team.
They'll actually be traveling to Iowa this next weekend for a night game against the Hawkeyes and coverage will begin at four o'clock Saturday afternoon on Civic Media stations in Richland Center, Amory, Wisconsin Rapids and Ripon.
And I really like the way we've set the bar low.
The patches where we're not getting completely embarrassed this past weekend.
was a victory.
So we got that going for us.
You know,
it's just Luke fickle air, I guess.
I guess.
And again, you're supposed, you're supposed to give every coach four years to get all their own kids in there.
You are
your coach, coach the ones you got, you know, look at Pat Murphy.
Yeah, look what he look what he's doing.
After Craig Council left to go to the Cubs to, you know, do so much better.
Cubs are down one game to none and they will be playing the Brewers tonight coverage beginning at 735 on several civic media stations and and then it's off to Wrigley Field and have they have they given game times for?
Three and four at Wrigley.
Yes, I believe they
have and while you look that up I will say that I've noted as expected that many Brewers fans and frankly
some cubs fans as well, not happy with the play by play crew that is calling it on on TBS.
And many people wondering on the brewer side, you know, why can't Brian Anderson call the games he's calling the Phillies Dodger series for TBS.
Well, obviously, because they don't, you know, want a Homer but brewers fans and even some cubs fans feeling like the network announcers, they just don't know their team and why can't we hear the local TV announcers?
Yeah.
I would, I would
prefer that.
I just, uh, Chicago, Chicago sports media.
I need to have a very quick bone to pick with you.
Why
did you,
why did you suddenly forget how the roof works at Miller Park?
Oh,
yes.
That was the
dumbest thing.
The
her conspiracy is that the brewers, they're monkeying around with the roof at American family.
So the Cubs are in the sun.
What
was in the shade and the Cubs dug out was in the sun.
And like there was something nefarious about the way the roof has always been for daygames.
Yes.
This is a new thing.
And it's controlled by MLB.
It's not controlled by the brewers during postseason.
Also, I don't know what happened.
I believe I cannot think of her name.
But there's a reporter.
I think she's like the sideline reporter for Marquis Sports Network.
And during pregame, she was talking about that, how the sun and the roof was on making the Cubs dug out warmer.
She, I am pretty darn sure, previously worked at a TV station in Milwaukee.
She knows exactly what the situation is.
I don't
know why
she's going
on on that.
And apparently in her understanding, the situation is a grand conspiracy.
Yeah.
But you know, there have been games where the roof is closed, games where the roof is wide open.
But by and large, for for day games, they have the roof about half closed.
In part, it's because you've got those fans in the the left field corner.
I mean, if you don't have that roof half closed and they're sitting on those aluminum bleachers, I mean, you are you're sitting in a frying pan.
So they've always had it kind of set up that way.
Again, nothing, nothing new, you know.
So we have a we have a day game for game three then at
Wrigley.
Kind of a day game for a wait.
That's an evening game.
And then if necessary, a wait, am I reading that right?
This is all backwards for a wait for game three.
Game five four could be 808 Okay,
so things things are still a little influx shall we certain for the games on Wednesday and Thursday?
All right, I packed right low.
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