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Across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings of Pat Crite Low Power by Up North News.
He looks a little confused right now because I played the wrong music, but that's okay.
Now, here's the founding editor of Up North News, Pat
Critewell.
Today, I'm in Dallas for the next days here.
First, there was a conference that Sherry was attending and on our way down here to visit.
We got one daughter lives here along with a couple of grandkids.
The other daughter brought her kids along.
So we've got the whole hooten holler together this week.
Wow.
down here in Dallas as we enjoy like, you know, about an hour of the day at the beginning and an hour at the end.
And in the middle, you just look for air conditioning wherever you can get.
I hope you guys had a good weekend.
We did.
We did.
Not as busy as your weekend, apparently, but, you know, it was warm, beautiful weather up here in Madison and in Wisconsin, I believe.
So, yeah, everything went well.
In fact, you know, we might be getting some rain today, which we could use.
My lawn looks
outrageous.
And I was busy at the walk to help end Alzheimer's, which was a huge turnout here in Madison at Warner Park.
And perfect weather for that, but saw a lot of the folks and WMDX was one of the participating sponsors for that.
So it was great to see everybody there.
And we talked to Pam Yankee, the farm babe, about the World Dairy Expo.
And that was just a fantastic event, but really, really hot weather for all the animals there, trying to keep them cool and comfortable.
And that was not easy to do.
One thing I did learn though, the cattle or the cows they bring in from Canada have to have passports.
So I didn't pick
up on that part of
the conversation down there.
Yeah.
Yes.
The hoof print,
you know, gotta make sure they're not smuggling anything.
Yeah.
I mean, this is reminiscent of the old, you know, butter and margarine margarine
battles.
Yes.
Of days gone by.
Did you participate in that?
Did your parents participate in that?
I don't know.
I remember hearing the the the tales of it about, you know, going to get the the oleo and you'd have this little packet of yellow dye that you would mix in with it so that it looked like butter.
Yeah,
but it just wasn't the same.
I think my parents knew somebody in the inside because we had inside we bought the yellow margarine.
already.
We didn't have to
mix
it or anything.
Yeah, we were the whole family, by the way, went down there in the car, picked up this oleo margin.
Yellow.
It
sounds like reminiscent of the bootleggers.
They needed something else to do once prohibition was over.
So it's like, okay, now we're not running moonshine anymore.
We're running margarine into those dairy states that don't allow it.
But it was I, you know, did hear about the I've been monitoring the weather there was like 87 up on Lake Wissota on Saturday.
I don't think we're going to see 87 anymore.
I mean, we could but it doesn't it looks like falls here for real now.
And that's fine.
You get you got these great events like the walk to and all timers.
We were just talking before the break about how you guys in Madison, you've got so many trails for for biking and walking and doing all these events.
It's just wonderful for
recreation and how Wisconsin's been a real leader in converting, you know, old rail lines that aren't used anymore into these bike and walking trails.
So I mean, there's just no excuse to be a couch potato around these days.
Well, they're just about to start a huge, I think three year project on John Nolan Drive, which will reroute the bike paths over that way.
And well, it's going to reroute everything.
it's going to be a mess.
It is going to be an
absolute mess.
And anybody that uses John Nolan to kind of come into Madison from the from the south as Parker points right to himself and friends, he's gonna have to take one of those one of those other roads.
I was and I was telling folks before about down here in in Dallas, you know, they've got they've got nothing but land, they got nothing but space to put everything in.
And so the freeways here have all these extra express lanes and
You know, everything's on it.
It's amazing what you can do with oil money.
Apparently, there's a lot of it down here.
You can you can build the roads super nice.
Although I did have a comment on here about from Tony going toll roads, express lanes, you're not turning into a fib on us.
Are you Pat?
Well, no, I'm not going to say that in Wisconsin.
I don't know that toll roads would ever fly.
To me that always has struck me as like the you know, political poison to suggest that we have a toll roads in Wisconsin.
They
may be wrong.
Maybe there's
appetite now.
I don't
know.
Well, they talked about it for a while.
My idea was to just, you know, put a toll road at the beginning at at the border at the border.
Yeah.
And just have, you know, truckers go through, they need to pay for the roads, you know, they're wearing them out.
So why not have just something at the border of the state?
Yeah, I'd be good with the trucks paying it because sometimes especially
when one decides to ride next to the other one and they're blocking both lanes for a while.
It's when I get on my soapbox, I'm like, you know, we could we could give these trucks a road of their own.
And they could all just stay on that one road in that one lane, we could even put all the trucks together.
As they go down, you know, we could put steel rails down and make it even easier for all that cargo to go up.
Now, we could call it a railroad.
And then
there we
go.
Quite so many trucks on the road.
That could happen.
Right.
I'm afraid that ship is sailed.
Everybody wants instant gratification.
We can't be waiting for the trains.
We got to get things right to where they got to be right now.
Look, I want to take care of the tolls.
All the fibbers that are coming up here, they own property land, lakefront properties.
That's cool.
Pay for the roads to guys.
Okay.
Yeah.
I mean, that's the way it is.
And I think we should at least get some help.
with our with our roads.
Yeah, that is actually where I have the one unpopular position as people get their their EVs.
And they don't like the the higher, you know, cost for the tabs because they're like, why?
It's like you're penalizing me.
Well, no, we're just making sure you pay for part of the roads too, because you're clearly not paying it at the gas pump anymore, which is a good thing.
Don't get me wrong.
But yes, you still got to help pony up for, you know, some of the wear and tear on the road.
Well, I've
got an EV now.
That's what we're trying to johns on
going update to turn his home into a
mini
power plant for all
the drivers and Madison to stop.
I'm gonna start using a lot of electricity.
How's that going?
Well, we're getting a charging station put in on the 14th of this month.
Oh, we're getting there.
Okay.
Yes.
And it only costs about $2,000.
So I'm spending tons of money just to put an EV in so I can save a little money on gasoline.
Yeah, right.
This is working out
for me.
I
I
would love to see in the end if you could track all the expenses and see if it works out in the end or not.
I think that it will, but you have to do these big expenses for outlay, and
it
makes you question it.
But
no
regrets at this point.
No, no, no regrets.
You know, it's just the experience, a lot of learning.
You have to really educate yourself on all of this, you know, what kind of, what kind of stations you use.
You have to download the apps for two or three different kinds of manufacturers of those stations and set up accounts with them.
But you're, you're finding a few little things on the car that are not to your liking, though, like the door handles.
Oh, the door handles.
Yeah, you know, listen
to
this.
idea to streamline these cars so those door handles that stick out just a little bit create a tremendous amount of friction.
So they wanted to
streamline it.
So they streamlined it and now you have to push the handle in in order it's kind of like a seesaw you know it's
yeah and it just push it on one side to bring the handle out.
But here's the story.
Here's the story.
China has decided to abandon that idea completely because they can't really see the logic in going to the extreme of not handling having handles on doors simply for the fact that it might cause a bit of friction.
They're not doing it.
They're getting rid of it.
We're not we're not racing here.
This is
one
door handle could make the difference.
Exactly.
Just wait until winter and it freezes over and you can't get into your car.
That's what I'm
worried about.
You know, ice or snow building up behind the handle and I'm not able to kind of push it in.
Yeah.
So I don't know what's going to happen.
Well, I'll tell you that story when the time comes.
Yeah.
You
won't be able to get
here.
Yeah, that's right.
You won't.
You'll have to tell us the story by phone.
You know, say, come get me.
I can't get into my vehicle.
That's right.
Well, it'll
be an
excuse I'll use.
Yeah.
Now, you guys, we've all been doing radio for a long time here since, you know, baseball was only on the radio TV.
hadn't been invented yet.
So as you as you track the brewers, I wanted to ask you guys, for as long as you've been doing morning radio, when there's either a pack or night game, or like the brewers game doesn't even start till eight o'clock, right?
Do you still for the for the purposes of you know, show prep and research, you know, stay up past your bedtime, or do you just, you know, in this day and age go, you know what, I'll catch the highlights at 5am and that'll be good.
Oh, I'm staying up definitely, but I'm absolutely, but I'll take a nap sometime this afternoon to, you know, get ready for it.
But
yeah,
I know it's crazy.
I don't know why they're doing this at eight o'clock at night.
Doesn't make any sense to me at all.
Just just the money.
That's
just that
really
and the money.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I turn in, you know, I'll get so keyed up.
I was so angry about the game that I won't be able to get to sleep right away.
So I just give up early on.
So, you know, I don't really know what's going on and and not good.
Just check the highlights in the morning.
Any recorded keeps track of that for me.
Yeah, I was
explaining how I couldn't see any of game one because we were traveling.
We're at the Nashville air.
airport on Saturday afternoon.
And you you be in Tennessee and you try to get just one of the 7,000 TVs at the Nashville airport to not be on college football.
And good, good
luck
with
that.
So instead, I was following it on the phone.
I'm looking at the score updates.
Well, first off, you know, the Cubs scored first top of the first, you know, lead off home run, we're like, Oh, this is this is not good, you know,
But Freddie, Freddie kind of, you know, took hold of things after that.
And next thing you know, the brewers bats are going to work.
And as I'm watching the score just pile on, I, I texted to a couple of buddies I said, I'm so sad I'm missing this on TV just for the cutaways of Craig Council.
Well,
sure enough,
a few minutes
later on social media, people start putting posts of Council smirking as the camera cuts away to him, which frankly makes it one of the best parts of the game.
Yeah.
Well, the fans were really giving it to him in the stadium.
It will nonstop.
Can't
say that I blame him.
I've
said all
the time.
Yes, he deserved to be the highest paid manager in baseball, but there were also other teams that were going and he didn't necessarily have to go to the Cubs.
So I don't mind the extra ribbing that he gets and how good this is going to feel if we end up prevailing in this series.
But to do that, we would
We're getting ahead of ourselves.
We have to keep in mind that we still got to play the game tonight.
735 is the start time on several civic media radio stations.
And then you've got the Badgers who will play next Saturday.
That's a night game at Iowa.
4pm coverage begins next Saturday.
But I was telling Parker before guys that we've reached that era now where because the Badgers didn't suffer an embarrassing loss this past Saturday, it's practically a win.
It is.
It's a good way to look at it.
Right.
It's the what do they call those the symbolic victories,
you
know,
that's
right.
The things that will take when we can.
We're talking to John and Gordy from WMDX in Madison and we'll continue that conversation and then 15 minutes from now or so we're going to be talking about the cuts that are coming to health care.
There's a lot of focus on the government shutdown, understandably, but we can't forget how we got to this point.
We got to this point because of major cuts coming to the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid and Democrats wanting them restored, Republicans need Democratic votes to pass a budget, and yet they don't want to negotiate with those same Democrats.
So we'll talk to Megan Rowe from Opportunity Wisconsin all about keeping our eye on the ball.
and restoring some of those health care cuts that are otherwise coming.
I'm Pat Crichtlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get
started.
called Civic Media Today.
Somebody really went on a limb naming that one.
What was that committee meeting like down there guys?
CivicMediaToday.substack.com, plenty of links to shows and highlights from the shows.
And if you're catching us on the radio rather than social media and you want to know what do John and Gordy look like, well, get to the newsletter.
CivicMediaToday.substack.com, allegedly.
Would
they
do that?
I don't think they, that's probably not a great idea.
I don't
know.
You know, we've been working with AI now, trying to come up
with
different ideas and different kind of ways to promote the show, come up with posters and certain products that we want to add to our store eventually.
And I put together a storybook about going back to cursive.
hand right now.
Yeah.
And, you know, we're pretending as though we have a long past of putting up products that didn't quite work out bandwagons.
We shouldn't have jumped on.
Yeah.
And cursive was one of those bandwagons.
So yeah.
And in all that,
You know, AI is interesting.
It can be fun.
It's entertaining to some extent.
And if you want to find out more about going back to cursive, it's... We've got it on our Facebook page.
Yes, the John and Gordy Facebook page.
A little storybook and an AI storybook.
Drew some pictures of us, some artist renderings of us.
Created a whole
story.
It was really kind of interesting or frightening, what all that AI can do already.
And yet there have also been enough stories about these data centers and how much is needed for resources, for water,
for
electricity, that I'm now going to feel guilty every time I ask it to do some goofball thing rather than, you know, solve the theory of relativity or these things that these massive computer centers could do for us.
And
instead, it's like, you know, what would I look like if I was a
you know, and do a storybook on that.
I don't know.
Well, I did hear a discussion on civic media.
I don't know what show it was, but they were talking about that.
And apparently they're paying an extra tax.
They're paying something extra to put that kind of load on the current systems that we have in the state.
I hope so.
Yes, they're going to pay a little extra.
I hope a lot extra.
I
would.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I did put the the chat GPT app on my iPhone.
I haven't used it a ton.
But the couple of times that I've put something in there, I have been really impressed with the answers that come back.
I mean, it's so different than, you know, by comparison, our early Google searches were
almost
like
cave paintings.
You know, you got to think of like the the three key words that will generate some good responses.
And I just write it out in plain English, and you get a plain English response in return.
So it's, it's making some nice strides.
I don't know.
Maybe you guys don't do do as much with it
other than story.
I thought, Hey, Google was actually pretty, pretty good.
Yeah.
And now that's been replaced by Gemini, I believe.
Yes.
So Google's Gemini.
Yes, the problem is that Gemini wants wants a piece of everything.
Along with all these other note taker programs like Otter and things like that.
Can can you do any meetings online at all without suddenly getting like 14 different messages of so and so's note taker wants to join the meeting.
Somebody's Otter, somebody's Gemini, somebody's whatever.
It's like, like I needed more reasons to to be reminded that I'm being listened to.
all the time.
All
the time.
It is annoying.
Well, the scary thing we didn't get to it on the program today, but it was that ring door bells are going to have face recognition.
Oh, is that
so abilities now, which is not good.
If they can do that.
not just for people.
But I mean, I want to know which dog it was that left a gift, you know, on the front.
So if
you've got
a good one,
you know, oh, no, it was it was Fido not Rover.
So you know, which neighbor that you can bother, then it's okay.
But yeah, we
I mean, again, because we were trained in this, we're pretty well aware of microphones and cameras and knowing that anything could be live at any point.
But, you know, we never thought it would come to the point where if I, if I were to use the word, I don't know, coffee enough times in the remaining two minutes of the segment, I can guarantee the next time I go to Facebook, there's going to be some kind of a coffee ad on there.
Yeah.
And I don't know if it came through my if it was at the phone listening or the computer listening, or maybe the coffee maker was listening because everything's connected to the internet these days.
Maybe if I just brought up cheap coffee beans.
Yeah, I could get some ads for some affordable coffee.
I
was
gonna say
maybe so because that what did I see coffee is up like 40% over the
past
12 months, something like
that.
Yeah, it is Brazil has a lot of the coffee beans.
Yeah.
And everything is really high priced down there.
And by the way,
that much I get the funny thing, funny, maybe not the right word, but we're we talk a lot about soybeans and you know, Trump's trade war and how now China's getting all their soybeans from Argentina and Brazil.
And I don't know nearly enough about what's trying to do with all these soybeans anyway.
What what are we getting out of it?
I mean, yeah, we talk about soy
burgers and things like that.
But what else?
So
if you go into an Asian market, you'll find a lot of soy crackers and candies at a mall.
They use a lot of
soy.
So yeah, we know that it's, it's, you know what, I kind of put it up there in the category of ginseng, in that I know we produce a ton of it, and that we have Asian markets that really want it.
But I've never like actually
gone to Walgreens and said, Hey, can I get some ginseng?
Because I don't know what I'd be asking it for.
I don't know
what it
does.
I'm still, you know, just in
a
fog about ginseng.
I don't know what it does.
And I'm kind of afraid to ask and I'm afraid it might have something to do with that.
really explicit Taylor song, Taylor Swift song that we've been talking about for the past few days.
But I'm connecting dots that maybe I shouldn't be connected
here.
You should connect those dots.
Wait a minute here.
You can hear John and Gordy on our Madison station through Civic Media through the app or down in the Madison area on WMDX.
Guys, thank you so much for getting the week started here.
Hope you have a great day.
Appreciate
it.
You too.
Alright, when we come back, we are going to be talking more about the possibility of health care cuts that are
driving this government shut down with Megan Rowe from Opportunity Wisconsin.
That's coming up.
I'm Pat Krightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
Alright, well even when I'm on the road like being down here in Dallas this week I've still got time to read the Up North News daily newsletter and
you should too.
You can sign up at UpNorthNewsWI.com, click subscribe in the banner on the top of our homepage and get signed up.
Today's edition, we've been talking about the Ice Age Trail and what a beautiful place that is to do some hiking as the leaves start to change color.
And so look for an article there that Ellie's putting together and much more.
Again, get the newsletter at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
Now getting back to the government shutdown.
and how long this is going to last, and in doing so keeping in mind the root cause of this.
And we've got a president who is coming up with all manner of distractions.
For example, a lot of the halts to federal spending are not being done
across the board.
They're being done in an overtly partisan political way, shutting down projects in so-called blue states rather than red states, kind of stuff that is, you know, unethical as you can imagine.
And we may get back into that tomorrow morning, but I say that to say again, to keep your eye on the ball, and what is this all about?
And this is about cuts to healthcare and the increase
number of people in Wisconsin and across the country that are learning about it.
And they're learning about it because of groups like Opportunity Wisconsin.
And Megan Rowe is going to join us now to tell us a bit more about what the group is doing.
Megan, good morning.
How are you?
Good.
Good morning.
You know, it's Monday.
So we're hanging
in there.
Yes, we are with, you know, just day after day.
And I watched the updates that you're putting on social media and some of the events that are taking place.
And I mean, do you feel like character characterized it fairly in talking about the increasing number of people in Wisconsin who are kind of getting past the talking points and understanding what the shutdown is really all about?
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
We've been working since early 2020 to really highlight the impacts of economic policies at the federal level on Wisconsin workers and families.
And I think this moment in time, more than ever since the beginning of our program, we're really seeing it sink in for people.
We held candlelight vigils last week before the shutdown took place in La Crosse, Eau Claire, and Southeast Wisconsin.
And it was a last minute event.
We put it together and we had such amazing turnout because people were really concerned and are starting to really understand how this shutdown is going to impact their lives.
You know, we had Selina Heller on one of our reporters at Up North News and we ran a story that folks can see over on the Up North News social media sites.
A woman from La Crosse getting very emotional, tearing up at the
prospect of not being able to afford health insurance.
She and her husband are just a little too young yet for Medicare, but they're also at a point where they don't have jobs that offer health insurance.
And so the exchanges on the Affordable Care Act made health insurance affordable.
And it's starting to hit them just how
crazy expense of health insurance is going to become, you know, as the open enrollment period approaches next month.
And I feel like what Selena did there was capture in just this one person, what I think we're either seeing now or soon will be seen in households all around the state and frankly, all around the country as well.
Yeah, I mean, that's the bottom line when it comes to the shutdown Republicans shut down the government instead of lowering health care costs they refuse to dress massive health care cost increases and Extend tax credits permanently that help many a million millions of Ford care and so as you said without action Millions are going to see their premiums rise by an average of 75% and so rather than fixing the problem Republicans in Congress like Brian style and Derek van Orden are just sitting on their hands as we
speak
today.
And the thing is, I mean, and I've seen this in your social media posts and emails, that these are two among many members of Congress who said, we will not vote for something that makes massive cuts to health care.
And yet here we're seeing the massive cuts to health care coming.
And
What we always hear, Megan, is that, well, the cuts are actually to make sure that people who qualify for Medicaid or affordable care subsidies actually get them.
But I mean, that's, that's not the point.
The point actually appears to be adding all kinds of red tape or expense to people who do get it.
When you're cutting a trillion dollars from Medicaid over time here, it's pretty clear that a trillion dollars in Medicaid wasn't going to undocumented immigrants.
Oh, absolutely.
And to your point, earlier this year, Opportunity Wisconsin flew out to Washington DC with a handful of folks from across the state to help them share their personal stories with their members of Congress.
And we actually sat down with Congressman Van Orden for upwards of two, two and a half hours.
And in that meeting, he made promises to his constituents in that room that he was not going to cut or touch their benefits.
Shortly after that meeting, both he and Congressman Stile passed that tax law that ripped health care away from over 100,000 Wisconsinites and made drastic cuts to SNAP.
And again, this is all to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy.
And now, as we sit here today, they're blocking plans to reverse that damage and to lower health care costs additionally.
Can I ask you, but that when you sat down with Congressman Van Orden, and I just want to know if you if you heard this much, I recall seeing that and I thought, and I'm sure other people are thinking too, it's like, why are you letting this Congressman, you know, first off, it was, I guess, good for him and the others that they sat with you, you know, knowing your positions on the issues and things.
I thought, well, you're giving him oxygen to say, you know,
what we assume is falsely, I'm not going to make any such cuts.
But of course, in hindsight, you see the wisdom of that, you've actually got him on the record with you, promising not to make these cuts.
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, we certainly were skeptical that he would even take a meeting with us.
And we're glad to see that he was at least willing to sit down in that conversation with his constituents.
And like I said, he made the promises that he would not cut those benefits, he
essentially lied in that conversation went forward to make those cuts.
And since then, like I said, love to give him the benefit of the doubt that he sat down with us.
But after he made those cuts, if you'll recall, he has refused to hold any in-person town halls or conversations open to his constituents.
And so it's very clear that both he and Congressman Stile know exactly the impact of these votes that they have taken and they're afraid to adjust their constituents.
Right, we're talking to Megan Rowe from Opportunity Wisconsin about keeping keeping an eye on the ball when it comes to the health care cuts that are being made here.
So now I have to as I often do say it you know in fairness about the enhanced tax benefits for the Affordable Care Act.
These are credits that were
were due to expire.
And so there are definitely cuts coming to Medicaid programs.
This one is more of something that was due to expire.
The point being though, Megan is that, again, Democrats have been saying if you want our votes to help pass a new federal budget, part of it is extending these tax credits.
So I mean, people I believe Megan are
are aware or need to be aware that in some cases, we're talking about actual cuts.
In other cases, we're talking about benefits that were set to expire, but they're really good and they work.
And why wouldn't you continue them?
Yeah, absolutely.
I think especially you hear stories from small businesses that have benefited greatly.
from this additional support in their health care costs.
And small businesses are already struggling across this country because of rising costs, because of Trump's tariffs, that Congressman style and Congressman Van Orden also support.
And so this doesn't have to happen.
Republicans chose the shutdown because they wanted working families and small businesses to pay more for health care.
And so they need to be putting these working families first.
Reverse the harmful Medicaid cuts that they made earlier this year prevent health care costs from rising and keep the government open
I've been asked by Tony on YouTube here whether the meeting with fan order was was that something that was recorded and published Or is that something that you you took part in and reported on afterwards?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's something we took part in and reported on afterward and we there was a group of about
six or seven constituents in that meeting and they all had the opportunity to go around and share their story, which was great and is really at the core of what we do at Opportunity Wisconsin is uplifting individual stories and help them get across their elected officials.
But fortunately, it seems like it fell into years.
Yeah.
And by the way, there's ample recorded interactions with Congressman Van Orden.
For example, he was famous for saying that benefits for people who deserve them won't go down a nickel.
A nickel.
He repeated it.
We've repeated his words back several times and he said they they wouldn't go down a nickel.
They're going down a lot more than a nickel, you know, as as we go forward here.
So
So we've now established these types of cuts, these things that could be restored to make health care more affordable.
Before we go looking forward, I always feel like it's necessary to again say that these cuts, these lapses of enhanced tax credits, these are not things that are going to save money to taxpayers.
These are just all going to pay for tax cuts for the very wealthy.
So for folks going, well, yeah, we need to cut government spending.
We're not really cutting government spending here, are we?
No, absolutely not.
And frankly, the shutdown that
we're currently in is going to be forcing millions to go without paychecks.
We're on day six, so pretty soon folks are not going to be receiving their paychecks.
It could be delaying social security and veterans benefits.
And one thing that I think is starting to gain more traction that I don't think a lot of folks are talking about is how it is going to be cutting off nutrition assistance for pregnant women and young children through WIC.
That program is set to run out of money at some point this week and on top of the
snap benefits that were cut earlier this year, you can imagine that is going to be very devastating for a lot of people in Wisconsin.
So let's look forward then in our last couple of minutes here.
And you know, the either things that you're doing or things that you think people can do, if they want to, you know, either learn more about the issue, or have some kind of input on, you know, their concerns about the current shutdown.
Yeah, absolutely.
So
As you said, we're squarely focused on the shutdown right now and making sure people are educated and understand that this is an issue that can be solved if Republicans like Congressman Van Orden and Congressman Stile would stop sitting on their hands and decide to put working families in Wisconsin first.
And so folks can visit us at opportunitywisconsin.org where they can share their story about how this shutdown is impacting them.
They can follow us on social media, share their story there, and stay in touch because we're hosting events.
all throughout this month and as long as it takes to make sure elected representatives know how this is impacting their constituents.
We're also talking about Trump's tariffs that are really, as I said, having a huge impact on small businesses and families.
Wisconsin families are already struggling to make ends meet and with the rising cost of groceries, back to school items.
As we get into the holiday season, we already know that gifts for loved ones are gonna be much more expensive this year.
And so we want folks to stay involved and stay engaged because raising your voice is really one of the most important ways we can make change at the policy level.
I'm glad you brought that up because we've had all this focus on healthcare, but we also have the trade war that the president started and the impact that we're continuing to feel.
on the store shelves and what we're going to see, you know, come the holiday season.
So I'm glad you're able to keep an eye, keep the eye more than one ball at a time.
We always feel so overwhelmed, but we've got groups like Opportunity Wisconsin that are able to do that.
Megan Rowe is the program director.
And again, OpportunityWisconsin.org is the place to go to learn more.
Thank you, Megan, very much for visiting with us and giving us some background.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, our pleasure.
Thank you again.
Have a wonderful day.
When we come back, we're going to be talking to Jane Mattener and Greg Bach have Mattener on air weekdays from nine to 11 across the civic media radio network.
And we're going to find out what kinds of things are being planned for the show this week.
As for this show for the coming week, we've got Dan Schaefer in this block tomorrow from the Reconbobulation area.
We'll have Cam Stevenson live from Capitol Hill at the start of our eight o'clock hour, letting us know anything new on the shutdown.
and we've got Congressman Mark Polkhan joining us on Thursday that again here on these mornings with PAC Right Low Powered by Up North News on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Jane McNair is coming up
next.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
Also coming up this week, we'll be talking to Chuck Collins who was an heir to the Oscar Mayer fortune and then essentially gave it away and has been talking a lot about wealth inequality in the country.
He's got a new book burned by billionaires.
Chuck Collins of Patriotic Billionaires will be our guest on Wednesday.
coming up on the program.
Jane McNair is our guest now.
Jane and Greg, you can hear them weekday mornings at nine and you go, well, where's where's the Greg part of it?
Greg's on Friday mornings as part of our history lesson at 6 30.
And Jane joins us on Mondays to talk about what's coming up on the show this week.
Good morning, Jane.
How was your weekend?
Oh, it was great.
I was on the road.
A friend and I did a road trip and we went to Prairie Duchenne.
He had never been to the western part of the state.
I have never been to Prairie Duchenne and he is a big historical home preservationist and he's big part of that in here in Racine.
And there is a historic Villa Louie in Prairie Duchenne that was built in 1885.
So
we went and toured Villa Louie.
And it was fabulous.
It was what a beautiful.
I love our state so much because
no
matter where you go, the the topography is so different.
And it's just it's so beautiful in so many different ways.
I may go back to Paris Duchenne, although I still have nightmares, a little PTSD about Paris Duchenne from the time that I was actually kidnapped aboard a riverboat by Al Gore.
Oh, yes.
Remember, he did the post convention rally in the year 2000 at La Crosse the morning after the Democratic Convention.
And we were just there to cover, you know, Al Gore getting on the boat.
And Claire Shipman was an NBC reporter at the time and she's like, you have to come on the boat too.
I'm like, no, we have to get back to old Claire.
Well, he's only there.
They're only talking taking questions from local reporters.
So you have to come on and ask a question for for NBC Nightly News.
Tom Brokaw is counting on you.
Well, how are you pressure?
Yeah, no pressure.
And they'll just let you off right at the next stop.
There was no next stop.
Oh, hours and hours and hours went by before we could interview Al Gore.
And yeah, we we covered this what 10am event or whatever it was.
And it wasn't until like 10pm, we got dropped off in Prairie Duchenne.
Oh, no.
Had
to had to basically ask our competition at Channel 19 if we could ride in the back of their news car
We're just gonna hang onto the sides.
Would you mind if
we lay in the back of like the station wagon on top of all the spools of cable and camera equipment all the way back to our car in La Crosse and then get back to the station sometime well after midnight so
I never got my piece on air.
There was nothing on, you know, the nightly news or anything like that.
It was an entirely wasted day, which is not the fault of the good people at Prairie Duchenne.
I hasten to add.
But yes, probably.
That's my that's my experience there.
So I need a better experience.
I'm glad you've suggested a place I could go.
You should go.
Yeah, you should go to Prairie Duchenne.
It's a lovely little town and some great little restaurants and little shop haze.
And then if you drive right over the bridge,
on Highway 18, and then you're in Iowa.
And again, Little Marquette, Iowa is right on the other side of the bridge.
I wanted to drive over the bridge because ever since a couple of years ago, one of my sisters and I went to Superior Duluth and I drove over the Blotnick Bridge.
I've had bridge phobia, so I
am trying.
That is the scariest bridge in
the world.
It is a very scary bridge.
Yes.
Is it old and
wicker or what?
it's, it's again, it's, oh,
it's
a metal.
Very long.
It's very, it's very archy.
So you, you, it sometimes feel like you're just going to go right over the edge at some point.
And it's way up above the twin ports, of course, because massive ships have to go underneath.
Yeah,
it's a really high bridge.
So I'm trying to get over my bridge phobia by attacking smaller, less scary bridges.
Yes.
You know, it's, it's
people know the Hone Bridge in Milwaukee.
And I'm blanking on the name of the bridge in Green Bay, which also of course is a big high bridge as well.
The Blatnik Bridge puts those to shame.
It really does.
And normally, that has never happened to me before.
That I got freaked out by driving over a bridge.
But yeah, we're halfway over the bridge.
And there was all this construction I lectured and I said, we're gonna die.
I love you.
It's been great.
Thanks.
Which is why it's being replaced because it's now 60 years old and starting to not be a safe.
So and
and who did that infrastructure?
That would be Joe Biden and a Democratic Congress.
Oh, yeah, that's right
because no Republicans voted for that.
Did they not
from Wisconsin?
No one not a single one, including Tom Tiffany, the congressman for that area.
Yeah, little details, little details.
What do you have coming up on the
program?
Well, coming up today on the show in Charlie Pittman, Civic Media's news director, she's going to join us after the 9 30 news for a little update.
on what happened over the weekend.
After the 10 o'clock news, we're gonna talk to journalist Jackie Leiden and author Kathy Giorgio, who is an author from Waukesha.
She was on like this Waukesha star, you know, she was one of the alumni stars because she was an author.
And then they banned her book.
So we're gonna be talking about book bans.
There is an event in Waukesha this coming Wednesday night at seven o'clock.
If you are this is something that, again, because of all the other news that happens on a daily basis, we have forgotten that we're still banning books.
Yeah.
And what this means and what this indicates and why this isn't good.
So we're going to talk about that in our number two last half hour of the show.
We lighten things up, Pat, with audio sorbet.
And we're going to talk about how do you alarm?
Some people
alarm.
How do you
alarm?
Some people,
Greg doesn't use an alarm.
I love my watch.
I love using my watch alarm.
Because it's just a very gentle thing on your wrist to wake you up.
It's not the
other
people really need that.
You know,
I but yeah, Greg said he wakes up before his alarm almost all the time.
I
I
still have a clock alarm.
Oh, that's adorable.
I know isn't that cute for
those of
you who are watching on the stream who don't know and a radio alarm is a small box that you plug in and then you can get radio stations on it.
You got
to send it.
You can
set the alarm.
It's an amazing thing.
It is especially if and if you don't want to hear the radio station, you just put it between stations and you get the static and
mine actually has I have the choice of sounds.
I can
I can have
the crashing waves.
I can
have the rainforest.
I
don't, I don't rainforest that keeps me
awake.
And then I think of snakes, but anyway, thank you.
Have
a great day.
Appreciate it.
The rest of you have a wonderful day as well.
And we will see you back here tomorrow morning.
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