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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.
Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.
Hey, good morning, 706.
Nice to have you back here up north.
Wednesday morning now, October 15th, 2025.
already halfway through the month of October here and temperatures ranging from a low of a 43 in Anago and Eagle River to 54 down in southeast Wisconsin.
It is 46 right now in Wasaw and in Rapids, 48 in La Crosse, 46 in the Chippewa Valley, 52 in Madison right now.
And again, nice to have you along.
Ellie Bordeaux, Up North News newsletter editor is going to be joining us in just a bit here.
Then at the bottom of the hour,
We'll be talking to State Senator Chris Larson.
We originally booked him to talk about his bill that would increase taxpayer transparency for the voucher school program.
But there was also a rather contentious debate in the State Senate yesterday about a resolution honoring Charlie Kirk to the point where Senator Larson's microphone got cut off by the Senate president because she did not like the things that Senator Larson was saying about Charlie Kirk's
You know life and record and so I'm sure we'll talk to the senator about that as well that and so much more still ahead and First I've got to acknowledge a few things in the mailbag here on the text line.
David new Berlin first Said that he he just got in to work and he missed the history lesson from last hour.
He's very unhappy about that
And, uh, says talk about Brewer's baseball, which we don't want to do Dave.
The team did not look good.
Parker, the team, I wonder,
baseball.
I wondered if it might be that.
Yeah.
You can often read the tone and then he has a classic follow up.
Talk about Dave from New Berlin.
He likes to hear his name on the radio.
Well played.
day from New Berlin.
You are there.
So thank, thank you for that.
And the Brewers lose five to one.
They're down in two games to none.
The series heads to Los Angeles now and they will play tomorrow.
Oops, gotta fix that banner on the screen here on social media.
That's actually game three that will be played tomorrow.
I wish we could do a do over for game two, but it's actually game three tomorrow coverage starts at 430 on several civic media stations.
And so there you go.
Hopefully the Dodgers have run out of good starting pitchers.
I know I'm laughing.
They've got a $500 million payroll.
The odds are kind of against that.
I was just complaining Kershaw about that.
Let's see also in the in the comment sections from YouTube from Rob.
Good morning from Tigerton.
It's cloudy and 46 degrees had about three a third of an inch of rain overnight.
has a doctor's appointment in Shawno, then getting his papers faxed over for the state.
We did need the rain.
It was very welcome.
It seems the brewer bats always cool off in their NLCS appearances.
Yeah, true that.
And, and then also wants to make note that Ellie does an excellent job with the newsletter.
I get them.
It is very informative.
So we got to pass that on to Ellie in a moment here.
And Tony finally reminds us
The Brewers won 14 straight games this year.
They can do four in a row yet here in the playoffs.
Thank you, Tony.
We needed to hear that.
So all right, well, let's bring in Ellie Bordeaux, newsletter editor for UpNorth News.
You can sign up for the newsletter over at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
Ellie, good morning.
How are you?
Good morning.
I'm great.
How are you guys?
Uh, we're, we're good.
Thank you.
And I was looking at today's newsletter.
I see that you included, first I saw the photo of you and your boyfriend, Jason at a brewery game.
And I thought, were you at the playoff game last night?
And then had to do the newsletter that goes out at 6am and then radio at 7am.
And then of course I read the caption and it's from a game that you guys went to in April, but still.
Yeah, no, we were not at the game last night.
That would have been a little bit of a late night, but
I know a lot of
people that weren't Little disappointing for sure.
Yeah, do you know one of my One of the things I hoped to do this year was I noticed they do a lot of crowd shots when you're covering baseball games and that's fine And I know enough people who are always talking about going to the Brewers games that I was like making it a point this year in the crowd shots I wanted to be able to say
I know that person might have been might have been Joseph Becky or maybe Parker using the radio station tickets or something Luke Mathers other other friends who've gone to games and I was over the season.
I did not see in the crowd shots,
but I
will continue to watch because it I firmly believe the series is coming back to Milwaukee for game six next Monday and we'll be checking out the crowd then maybe one of you two will be getting to game six tickets between now and then.
Yeah, maybe.
Yeah, right after you robbed that bank.
Yeah,
exactly.
So Ellie makes mention of, you know, how nice it is to go to the ballpark and see a game.
And then, you know, gets into all kinds of other things like must see attractions in Wisconsin.
There's a few different examples of that lately, Ellie, because people really seem to like to visit Wisconsin in the fall.
Yeah, this is true.
I there are a ton of
things on this list, Devils Lake State Park, the Apostle Islands, the Wisconsin Dells, House on the Rock, Tilly Heston, all those kinds of things.
I think those are super cool attractions.
Some of the things I haven't even been to yet, and they're on my Wisconsin bucket list, and I've lived here my whole life, you know?
So make sure you go visit those.
I think the list that they have on here is a pretty good compiling of
all the things you should check out.
Oh, I mean, it includes Door County.
It includes Lambeau Field.
And frankly, I hadn't been to Door County until last year.
My wife grew up in Manitowoc County.
She'd never been to Dora County until last year.
And we went for a drive around it and said, we definitely have to spend a weekend here one of these times.
So yeah, there's always something for everybody to discover in some way, shape, or form.
And we've done that with a few things here.
You had a story recently about fall cabin getaways.
Again, there's all kinds of things that people study about types of travel.
Right.
Yeah.
Wisconsin is definitely
I think something that people don't necessarily always look out for, but it always ends up on the list, you know, like in one way or another.
So this list is from Texas Real Estate Source.
They did a survey of, I think, like 3,000 people and asked, where would you want to have a cabin in the fall?
And Wisconsin made the list three times.
And yeah, I mean, Wisconsin, I
I think Wisconsin in the fall is the best season and especially up north like you get to see all the fall colors.
They're beautiful drives.
They're beautiful lookout points like you just can't
Can't beat
it.
So and the thing is we're not quite there yet Folks watching us on social media will notice that I put up a new photo of Lake Wissota taken yesterday or I'm sorry day before And we don't have the the morning fog in there, but you also notice the trees haven't really changed yet There's some hints of yellow out there, but but not much and I think because we had Plenty rain this summer that it's taking a while for the leaves to change and so
My message to everybody else is if you think you missed it up north, you haven't.
Plan a weekend.
Come on up here and get around.
Totally.
Yeah, there's still a lot of green going on.
Even in like Central Wisconsin where I am, there's still a lot of green.
So there's, I don't think it has even reached its peak yet.
So definitely go up north and check it out.
Yeah.
And then there's some new stories being covered in here as well.
It's not all about travel and events.
For example, we had a story this week on Port Washington getting set to break ground on an AI data center project, but residents are trying to fight back.
And the story there by one of our freelance writers explains some of the issues that are at stake in this project.
Yeah, there's been a lot of pushback on that in Port Washington.
And I know there's some other data plans that have been talked about.
being proposed that have received pushback as well.
So this story goes into that.
It's a really great description of what's going on.
What does it mean for that city?
What does it mean for Wisconsin?
What does the data center do?
Those kinds of things.
So it's really informative and lets you know what, what is this?
Why is this important?
Why is this relevant to me and all that sort of stuff?
We're talking to Ellie Bardot, who does the newsletter for Up North News now.
And how did you, how would you gauge the response when you asked people to send in, you know, some kind words and photos of their favorite small businesses in some of their hometowns?
I have gotten a ton of great responses.
It's when I do my local's love section on Fridays, it's sometimes hard to pick.
What to feature you know because I get so many great responses and there's so many things I want to highlight and I definitely if you send them in I will get to them you know but
people love their towns, people love their small businesses, just absolutely raving about boutiques, different shops, different wineries, cafes, all that kind of stuff.
So I love hearing those types of things.
And it also selfishly is things that I can check out, you know, and show
other
people that live in that area like, Oh, you should go check this out.
People really like this.
So I asked on Friday for people to send in their favorite pizza spots.
And so
Hopefully
I got some
good responses there.
I was going to say, you're getting some good answers there.
I'll bet for this coming Friday's issue.
Oh yeah, definitely.
I'm getting a lot of good responses for sure.
And again, it's a little.
it's nice for me because then I'm like, oh, when I'm in this area,
I'm gonna check this place out, you know?
Well, we could basically do, we could set up pizza tours.
Like, you know, for a weekend, go spend this place on Friday, this place Saturday, this place Sunday and go try the pizzas in all these places.
And then the next weekend, go to this part of the state and do the pizzas, you know, here, here and here.
We've done that on the radio a couple of times here where we've asked people to just put in the comment sections.
their favorite, you know, non-chain pizza places.
And the comment section fills right up.
And so I don't doubt that you're getting responses for that, for pizza.
And so then will you at that point kind of just go back to small businesses in general, you just want to see something specific like pizza about the response, or do you have other categories that you're looking at doing for your locals love section on Fridays?
Yeah, we're going to do a different.
a different category every Friday.
So every Friday, I'm going to ask for something a little bit different.
This week was pizza.
Next week, I'm not sure.
You'll have to stay tuned and find out.
But yeah, we'll check out something different every week.
And it is a great way to highlight different small businesses around the state and get people going to those spots.
So it's really
great.
And of course, we've right away started on the text line.
Dave in New Berlin is nominating Crossroads 2 in, believe it or not.
New Berlin.
Noted.
Dave's Dave's a local.
So yeah, we thought since he was the first one to throw something in this morning, we'd give a shout out to the folks at Crossroads Pizza as well.
And by the way, I'm glad that you asked not just for people to talk about their favorite business or pizza place, but to send the photos in as well.
There's something we don't do now, but we did when the newsletter first started five years ago, was ask people just to send in like
weather picks.
And that way we would have, you know, user generated content.
That's one of the buzzwords of the industry
there.
And we would we would get inundated with photos of people that want to show, you know, the field across from their house or the lake or, you know, the birds up in the trees or whatever that shows things off.
And I think people genuinely enjoy sending photos in of things around their community, whether it's their favorite business, or things like that.
So I'm glad to see you're getting a good response to that.
Yeah, definitely.
I love getting photos into and I also especially wanted people to tell me why is it your favorite?
What what what makes it so great?
You know, is it the service?
Is it the people?
Is it the pizza?
What is it?
You know, so I love getting photos and I love getting all those responses.
So it's really great.
It is the only downside is that setting photos is still a little iffy.
And I mean, sometimes the photos come through as normal sized photos.
And sometimes they don't.
you know they they adjust the file size or something and you've got these photos that if you try to look at them on your screen the pictures are this
And then you get some other photos where it's like, you need to squint like this.
It's a little tiny postage stamp that they sent in.
Right.
Like this
big and all pixelated and
all pixelated.
It's like, you really want to use the photo and send this note back.
Like, can you send it at a different file size?
Oh, no, I don't even ask anymore.
That just opens a whole can of worms.
But do feel free to try to send your photos in, send them in to us, respond to the newsletter, sign up at UpEarthNewsWI.com.
Allie Bordeaux.
Thank you so much.
Good to talk to you.
Yeah, thank you.
Have a good one.
All right.
Thank you.
All right.
Coming up in about 15 minutes, we will be talking to State Senator Chris Larson about the Charlie Kirk Resolution Debate yesterday and taxpayer transparency for voucher schools.
Live from Lake Wissota, I'm Pat Krightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
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Up on our website, upnorthnewswi.com, you can find the written versions of the longer versions of things that we post up on social media.
We put a lot up on Facebook, certainly on Instagram as well, a little bit on TikTok.
And then sometimes we write the accompanying stories and put those on the website.
And on the website right now is my latest updated story on the governor's race.
Each one started with the same graphic, a graphic of 12 different people who have been or might run for governor.
Are they in?
Are they out?
Is there a question mark next to their name?
And everybody on that photo has something new next to their name, that they're in or they're out, except one.
Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, waiting to see what he does, what he decides on.
Remember, we talked to Earl Ingram one week ago today, and he said that he had talked to Mandela Barnes and that, you know, we should not be surprised if he gets in the race.
And we'll ask Earl coming up after eight o'clock if he's got any new insight on that.
But the story, the newest story on the website.
also says, you know, what about the significance of Josh Kahl not running for governor?
What does that mean for Wisconsin?
And beyond the governor's race, it really has something to do with providing some security when it comes to standing up to the Trump administration.
For all the details on that, see my article over on our website up North News W I dot com.
All right.
This is a case where somebody has put something in the comment section, and I feel like this is a good time to address this, and it deals with the Affordable Care Act.
And the whole note about the government shutdown.
And I have made note that Republicans want to make healthcare less affordable.
because that is the net result of what they are doing.
When you are letting the enhanced tax credits expire, that made the Affordable Care Act policies more affordable.
When you're making the cuts that you're making to Medicaid, when you're putting more eligibility red tape in the way, you are making health care less affordable.
And why would you do that?
Well, probably because you're doing the bidding of some big campaign donors, people who work in corporate America.
for-profit health insurance companies and things like that.
So we hear a lot about the marketplace and the magic of competition.
It doesn't work that way in healthcare.
And I'll tell you why.
Right after I share this comment that says, your premise that Republicans want to make healthcare less affordable is totally wrong.
As a small business owner with just under 100 employees, we have seen firsthand the effects Obamacare has had on health insurance.
We used to be able to pay 100% of our employees insurance.
Once Obamacare kicked in, premiums have continued to rise.
to the point where we are only able to pay 50% of the cost.
This started immediately after the legislation was passed.
Not only have premium skyrocketed, but coverage mainly deductibles and total out of pocket has increased substantially.
It is now catastrophic insurance do away with Obamacare.
Now, I appreciate that that comment came in that comment is well taken.
It is a comment that I have heard many times over the years.
And it is a comment that in my point of view has
amnesia over what the world was like before the Affordable Care Act.
And I don't know if this amnesia is tainted to some degree by partisan politics or what, but we knew for many years before the Affordable Care Act that our health insurance system in this country was broken and that the policies that were available, that the commenter says were so much more affordable back then,
Why were they affordable?
They were junk.
And most people didn't know that.
The people that did not have to make a claim under their health insurance understandably say, wait, I paid so much less back then.
Why am I paying more now?
Because the policies you have now, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, actually cover some of the things that you need.
Prior to that,
All we heard from for profit insurance companies, and I know this as the spouse of a physician, but also as a patient myself was no, nope, we're not covering this, we're not covering that.
I know you paid your premiums all those years, but it turns out that we can tell you no, and we are going to tell you no.
Now, two years before the Affordable Care Act, there was a poll by the Commonwealth Fund, and it found not surprisingly,
82% of Americans wanted the health care system overhauled.
They were sick of the expense and again, always being rejected after years of paying their health care premiums.
Before the Affordable Care Act, we had 50 million Americans or more who were uninsured.
That number has shrunk to such a low figure that we did not think was possible prior to the Affordable Care Act passing in 2010.
We had an economy that was overburdened by healthcare expenses.
There was so much out of pocket cost.
There were so many people hitting, you know, these lifetime caps, even though they had chronic illnesses, but suddenly their insurance, that again, they had paid for, was useless.
Healthcare was gobbling up 18% of our gross domestic product, 18%.
Compare that to...
9% in Australia, 11% in Canada, 11% in Germany, 9% in the UK.
And all of them had done something to overhaul their health care system that made health care more accessible and more affordable.
And last but not least, all of the Americans who were caught in job lock.
They were holding on to crappy jobs.
The only reason they stuck to these miserable jobs was it was the only way they could get health insurance.
And through the Affordable Care Act and those subsidies that make private health insurance more affordable, which is what conservatives always say they wanted, by making private insurance for the individual, for the couple, for the family more affordable, people didn't have to stay in their garbage jobs.
They could go do something else that was more fulfilling with better coverage.
So yeah, the premiums have gone up because you're getting what you paid for.
You're getting coverage that covers more of the things.
Should it be fixed?
Could it be made better?
Absolutely.
For over a decade now, we've been saying to Republicans, help us make it stronger, help us make it better, help us cover more people.
And the answer has been no repeal and replace.
But by the way, we don't have a replacement.
we just want it repealed, which only helps one group, the group that keeps telling you know, while they're taking your premium money.
State Senator Chris Larson is coming up next.
Coming up later across the stations of the Civic Media Radio Network, we've got some more great talk shows and they've got some great guests to tell you about as well.
Let's see, Matt Nair on air follows us from 9 to 11 and Dr. Kristen Lyrely will be joining Jane Matt Nair and Greg Bach coming up at 9.35 this morning.
Todd Alba's show from Two Until Four is live from the Majestic Theater in Waukesha for the world premiere.
of the movie, No Packers, No Life.
So you're not going to want to miss that coming up today on Todd's show.
And then Maggie Dawn from Four Until Six, one of her guests includes Professor Charles Franklin from Marquette of the Marquette University Law School Poll, the Marquette Poll.
We'll be talking about that with Maggie Dawn.
Again, all that and more.
And if you want more information on anything that's happening on the Civic Media Radio Network, you should get their daily newsletter head over to Substack, Civic Media Today.
always great to welcome back to the program.
State Senator Chris Larson from the Milwaukee area here in our weekly homeroom segment where we will be talking about school voucher taxpayer transparency, but then a few other things that are coming up as part of the legislature's fall session as well.
Senator Chris Larson, good morning.
How are you?
Good good to see you Pat happy to be on a little bit better if our brewers were able to light the bats up yesterday
Amen
to that.
Yep.
We got we had we got to solve that starting pitching problem for them and and hopefully yeah the bats can Wake up in time and get the series back to Milwaukee for a raucous game six Things were a little raucous on the floor of the state Senate yesterday where I served many moons ago and I so I'm certainly familiar with how
debate can go on things that might have a bit of a partisan split.
And it's, it's unfortunate that we have a partisan split when talking about Charlie Kirk, because we can all denounce political violence in its many forms.
But there should also be something said for being able to denounce, you know, things that a murder victim may have said in their life.
And you and others
loud noise there, somebody was scratching the microphone or something.
Anyway, we had people like yourself that were trying to tell a more complete version of Charlie Kirk's life because of the debate over this resolution honoring him on what would have been their 32nd birthday.
And at one point, Senate President Mary Felskowski, just cut your mic off.
Tell folks what it is that you were saying and why you were interrupted that way.
Yeah, so we, you know, this, this, I think this was thrown on there specifically to try and, you know, give, give a nod to not just to be able to say the life and legacy and to grieve, which is important, right, and to condemn political violence, because this did not condemn.
political violence, which we saw as a huge glaring omission.
And so two senators spoke before me, Senator Drake and Senator Johnson spoke very well, highlighting the career of Charlie Kirk that was steeped in white supremacy and of trying to create white men as being victims in our society, which has created so many of the problems that we have.
And so they pointed out specific quotes.
And I think that kind of increased the temperature of the room.
And I wanted to talk specifically about political violence of the nature that's being carried out by our federal government right now under the direction of Donald Trump.
And so I think I built a crescendo to the point where they were not wanting to hear any of what Trump had done.
And this kind of goes to what I think a lot of people realize, which is Republicans don't want to hear about it.
They kind of have a picture of somebody with their hands over their ears and their eyes shut.
Because if they know about it, then they have to do something about it or say something about it.
So it's pointing out the violence where you have masked men who are coming in and taking people in the dead of night without warrants.
where just south of us in Chicago, they are repelling down on Black Hawk helicopters and zip tying kids in the streets, where they shot a pastor, David Black, in the head with pepper balls, who was simply praying outside of an ice facility.
You have a reporter who was detained under false pretenses.
So this is continuing to happen in America.
And so if we are going to be denouncing, if they're refusing to denounce violence writ large, this is all included in that.
And I think that that's something that they should all have to answer for.
In the midst of it, they decided to grab the shut off the mic because they didn't want to hear all of this.
And the debate was concluded.
So I find it very ironic considering part of what they were trying to say was that he was a that Charlie Kirk was somebody who believed in the First Amendment and the ability to be able to talk through.
your problems and at that moment that's when they cut off my mic and they cut off the debate for anybody to be able to speak and they did a parliamentary procedure where it's called calling the question something you're familiar with, Pat, which means that everything has to shut down and no one else is allowed to talk anymore.
So it's really a many, the latest in a series of sad moments for our democracy and free speech.
Well, it gets to the whole notion of you know before we were talking about DEI we were talking about CRT critical race theory and you know the the
more complete telling of our history in this country.
So I'm not really surprised to hear that folks also did not want to hear a more complete telling of the history of Charlie Kirk.
You can still be very much opposed to political violence, but again, the deification of Charlie Kirk stops right here.
We're talking to Senator Chris Larson, Democrat from Milwaukee.
And that was some of yesterday's action on the state Senate floor.
Let's get to something that probably will not see action on the state Senate floor, but should.
And it is the ongoing work that you and others are doing to try to help taxpayers understand the burgeoning, the exploding cost of taxpayer supported vouchers for families to send their kids to private, usually religious schools.
And I always have to set it up this way.
I'm not saying that we're opposed to private schools.
It's not at all.
You want to go?
Go.
But asking all the taxpayers of Wisconsin to help you pay for it when we're already paying for a school system, that's a totally different thing.
And Senator, what do you have in your bill there that would make things more transparent to taxpayers?
Yeah.
It's important to recognize that these things are built on an unequal playing field.
And it was 30 years ago now, Pat, that the voucher system came to be.
And this was supposed to be as a limited experiment.
And the justification was the competition, the free market competition, was going to improve public schools and provide these opportunities for low income kids.
Since then, that claim has not been uttered in over a decade.
They scrapped that.
They eliminated the idea that this was going to be limited very early on.
They also increased the income eligibility to triple it.
And one of the things that they did is they made it so that it is in a single year.
By the way, the cost now is about $700 million per year.
with no strings attached.
And so this is attaching those strings and going back to the original heart of what they were meant to do.
One of the big ones that we're going to be introducing is about eligibility, that if you would like to have this taxpayer funded.
private education, then you have to meet the income eligibility every single year.
I think a lot of people might not realize that if it's one year you qualify, the child is in, they can have their entire career funded by taxpayers.
So we will have income eligibility every single year.
One of the other things that's unique about the voucher program is that the teachers and the educators and the administrators do not have to be certified.
in the roles that they're in, which is a big loophole.
So we have a bill that would correct for that to make sure that teachers are teachers, administrators are administrators and principals are principals, not just somebody grabbing a group of friends and putting together a scam school, which is a majority of the schools when this thing first started, they fell by the wayside.
Another one is to make sure that there's a big loophole that allows for virtual.
schools.
This is where they don't have a physical presence and can be accepted from across the entire state.
Actually, last year, $65 million went to these virtual schools with no footprint and are siphoning dollars from places across the state.
So this is trying to make sure that you have to at least have a physical presence within the state and curtail that profiteering model.
So we have a number of other things that would
would do this, making sure that there's an automatic increase.
When vouchers get an increase right now, the opposite is true.
Whenever there's an increase for public school funding, private schools automatically get an increase.
We'd also make sure that money follows the kid.
This would stop the practice where private schools are kicking kids out after the count day.
There's this two census days and a keep hearing report.
I heard another one on Monday from a school worker who is retired.
He's saying, oh yeah.
With the week after the kids come back, the kids are coming in from these private schools and the money never follows them.
So anti-discrimination, private schools taking public dollars should not be allowed to discriminate.
Should not be allowed to kick out kids based off of gender based based off of sexual orientation or based off religious orientation.
And a lot of that is happening.
They can discriminate for whatever reason.
Students with disabilities, the teachers are not required as public schools are to require to follow their individualized education program to make sure that they're actually getting the tools that they need.
So this levels the playing field all across the board.
to make sure that a lot of the promises that have been made about the voucher program are actually in law and not just a pinky swear.
we are talking to State Senator Chris Larson from Milwaukee.
And one other aspect that might not be in this package, but again, I feel is necessary to bring up our enrollment caps, because enrollment caps, you know, putting a cap on enrollment for these vouchers for eligibility is what's kept the growth from exploding.
And those caps, if I'm not mistaken, come off in the not this school year, but maybe the next school year.
And
if that actually happens, I mean, $700 million now,
Yeah, who knows how they're going to blow the barn doors off the state budget.
If that happens, is there a move afoot as well to at least try to get Republicans on the record of voting on whether to keep those caps in place or let them expire?
Yeah, thank you for bringing that up.
Yes, that is that the caps coming off is a huge explosion.
We are waiting for and We put that is an amendment moving forward We tried to amend it in the budget and we are we have an amendment as being led by representative Christian Phelps And so we are trying to make sure that those caps are reinstituted because you're right.
There are schools Private schools that are looking to do huge expansions based off of this provision to be able to say, okay, we
and take all of these kids and keep the ones that we want, keep the easiest to teach ones and then kick out all the other ones to public schools, which is what is happening and has been happening for 30 years.
So we are in danger.
So as they're talking about limited dollars at the local level, local schools have to keep going to referendum, try and make up the gap from the state where there are $3,380 behind where they should be adjusting for inflation where we were 18 years ago per student.
So they have to make up for it for referendums.
It's going to get way worse.
Schools will close.
More schools will close.
They will have to keep going to referendum and school districts may have to fold.
unless we have an equal playing field.
And the state rededicates itself to ensuring every child has a quality education.
State Senator Chris Larson from Milwaukee.
We didn't have time to get into it, but there's a Republican package of bills that would lead to more repealing of state regulations.
And we did share your comments yesterday about that about, really, can you put a price on clean air or water?
So we appreciate that you are following that package as well.
And thank you very much for your time this morning on all of these.
matters.
Chris, thanks so much.
I hope you have a great day.
Thanks for all you do.
Appreciate it, Pat.
All right, good
one.
Thank you.
Coming up in our next hour, we'll be talking to Earl Ingram about what's coming up on his What's Going On podcast and Melissa Baldoff with our climate check and the chair, the national chair of Protect Our Care about the government shutdown.
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.
I'm thinking that an hour from now I will go through
the list of all the various No Kings rallies that are planned for Saturday around Wisconsin, something that's being planned nationwide.
And at last count, I got to 85 of them.
So I may not get to all of them.
But we'll talk about that.
We're going to be talking to Leslie Doc at 835 from the National Group Protect Our Care about the government shutdown and how health care is a big part of that.
But those protests aren't just about the budget cuts, but frankly, a lot of the other authoritarian actions that are being taken by this administration, it's going to lead to all kinds of demonstrations on Saturday.
So we'll help you find out about the one near you.
Jimmy Koska, Civic Media Sports Director joins us now to talk about things happening in the La Crosse area, as well as sports.
All right, let's start with sports.
Look how our enthusiasm for the Brewers has just come back to earth, shall we say?
Yeah.
Well, when you're playing a payroll, that's more than triple yours.
These
are
things that happen, right?
I mean, the Dodgers have an insane pitching staff.
We beat them six in a row in July and people go, wait, how could this be?
And then we are reminded that we didn't face Blake Snell in any of those six outings in July because he was injured.
But apparently last night's pitcher was pretty good too, even though we chased him after two thirds of an inning during the regular season.
So the whole thing is just a little baseball,
man.
I mean, it's just what happens in baseball.
And you know, you can't, here's the thing.
I'm just going to stick my head in the sand and stay optimistic.
You can't have brewers and six.
without spotting the Dodgers a couple of games.
So I am, I'm just going to say,
there you go.
I like that.
Roors and six.
And let's just go, right?
All
right.
Tony said it.
We'll bring up that comment again.
They won 14 straight this season.
They can do four straight.
They can do four in a row.
So let's do it.
Let's let's string four together right here right now.
Yeah, so the big thing for them is obviously just going to be getting the offense going.
14 runs in the last four games.
The stat that's out there, that is not getting it done.
It is one of the fewest totals of hits for the Brewers in any four game span in their history.
So it's something that they're going to have to do against a pretty good pitching staff.
It is the postseason runs and hits are harder to come by.
We can't get that going.
It's going to be really hard to beat a team that, again, has something like a $7 trillion payroll.
Right, right.
And you can't have like Christian Yelich on an offer streak that I think is up to 16, 17, 18 at bats here.
And Parker made a great point early this morning about
The way the batters are behaving up there is they're not taking these pitchers deep into the count.
They're hacking right away and getting out on a ground ball or out on three strikes and they're just not making those at bats count.
Yeah.
And again, you're going to have to make them call it because now you're on the road for at least two games.
You're hoping all three so you can get the series back to Milwaukee and try to take this thing.
But yeah, it's the postseason.
It is so much harder to win in the postseason than the regular season.
You know, the Brewers, the Brewers have, I think I've been saying all along, the advantage they have is they don't have to rely on one guy to get hot.
They just
They just got to all start putting a few things together to get it going.
That's where we're
at.
And Tony notes on YouTube.
Contact teams always have problems in the playoffs because the pitching is just better.
I say that as a Cleveland and Milwaukee fan don't need to string together homers to score runs.
And again, you know, good pitching beats good hitting.
That's the cliche and there wouldn't be cliches if they
It weren't true every now and then so we've got that coming up and again game three will be tomorrow from Los Angeles 4 30 the pregame begins on several stations across the civic media radio network and yet That's the highlight of what you're talking about in sports because you know, you get the Badgers playing Ohio State Saturday coverage begins at 12 30 on some of the civic media radio stations and Jimmy had see if you're with me on this part Parker does not seem to want to go along with this
I am promoting this game as the game to watch this season because if the Badgers beat Ohio State, you're going to talk about this for the rest of your life and that will be history making.
Now, the odds of that happening are really, really, really small, but it could happen and you want to say that you were listening to civic media when the Badgers beat Ohio State.
Are you with me on it now?
Have I sold you on the game?
You have not sold me on the
guy
at all because the brew.
I mean, the badgers
are are in a really, really tough spot right now because unlike Penn State, they can't afford to buy out for their coach.
It's it's become apparent that that things have slid off the rules.
Now they're losing recruits.
So now you're getting to the point where the impacts go beyond your win-loss record this year.
Now the future is at stake.
So now you've got re-recruits starting to decommit.
That's where I think things start making that turn.
If more do you commit, if the future, if money's a factor, when those things start happening, that's when your hand is sort of forced as an administration.
It hasn't, you know, it's weird that it hasn't quite gotten to that point, but that buyout number is so big and the Badgers are not, you know, historically have not been a program that likes to spend money on things like, you know, contract buyouts.
Yeah, well, again, since I'm going to be looking to polish this thing as best I can, the badgers are still 27 and a half point underdogs.
The fact that the bedding line hasn't changed over the past 48 hours, I'm going to take as good news.
It hasn't gotten any worse.
If you publish a turd, it's still a turd.
You are looking for every silver
lining you can in this man.
I'm telling you, the forecast for Saturday is pain.
It's pain.
Nice.
All right.
Well, then looks like ahead to Sunday, the Green Bay Packers take on the Arizona Cardinals on the road.
325 kickoff coverage begins at one o'clock on Sunday.
And maybe there too, we can get the Packers offense, much like the Brewers offense, much like the Badgers offense.
We just want offense.
There's so much in our life, and it is offensive.
We'd actually like some offense.
The Packers have one thing that's still waiting for them yet this year, and that's that Christian Watson's going to return at some point, and that could really open up the offense.
So there are good things coming for the Packers.
They haven't peaked yet.
They haven't figured it all out yet.
There are still good things to come with the Packers.
It was
to see Matthew
week.
Yes.
Yes, he was.
Very good.
So we have things to look forward to.
And we've got the places to hear them right here across the Civic Media Radio Network.
And Jimmy Cusco follows it and tells us all about it.
Jimmy, thank you so much.
Have a great day.
Thanks, Matt.
All right.
Hey, coming up next, we're going to be talking to Earl Ingram, what's happening with his What's Going On podcast.
And then later, Leslie Dock, National Chair of Protect Art Care.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
I'm Pat Krigel.
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