Still the Economy, Stupid (Hour 3)

Live, across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglo powered by Up North News.

Now, from our Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglo.

Well, hey there, Wisconsin.

Good morning.

It is 606 on a Thursday morning, October 23rd, 2025.

It's another beautiful morning to have you here up north, live from Lake Rosota, from wherever you're spending your mornings, listening across the Civic Media radio network, or catching us by podcast, YouTube, Facebook, however you got here.

We appreciate that you're getting your day started right here.

I got a question for you.

And it's our question of the week from our Sunday morning newsletter.

What's your stance on online sports betting in Wisconsin, especially when you consider that things like, you know, draft Kings and FanDuel and others, technically, they're not legal in Wisconsin, you could, you know, face misdemeanor gambling charges.

It doesn't happen.

It's kind of like the machines and all the bars and things around here.

It's just not worth the effort.

But what about having a fully legalized version of sports betting rooted in Wisconsin?

Where through the the tribal casinos that want to participate you could then online make sports bets, you know that way from from your couch I mean, it's it's an exploding industry.

There's just no doubt about it But is is that necessarily a good thing is it?

No big deal, but you know some people are going to become addicted and that's just part of what happens or is the risk too great.

and betting should not be expanded.

What are your thoughts on that?

We ask that in our weekly newsletter, Sunday mornings with Pac Wright.

Well, you can sign up for that at upnorthnewswi.com.

Be among the first to see, among the first to answer, and then we tally up all the responses and share them, you know, the following weekend with a new question of the week.

But it being Thursday and I'm getting set to, you know, tally up some of this week's responses for the newsletter.

I'd love it if you jumped in the comment sections of YouTube or Facebook, or if you use the Civic Media app and text us your thoughts on online sports betting in Wisconsin.

Again, for that newsletter, sign up over at UpGrowthNewsWI.com.

Coming up in just a bit, we are going to talk about the wrecking crew.

I was gonna say at the White House, there's actually two.

Two wrecking crews at the White House.

We've known about the one on the inside, tearing down government institutions, democracy checks and balances, rule of law, all those things.

Now there's literally one on the outside.

Yesterday we were talking about how Trump was breaking his promise not to touch the White House by actually tearing down the facade of the East Wing.

And then after the show came the update.

No, they're tearing down the entire East Wing.

the White House to make room for Trump's big expensive new toy that he claims is going to be funded with private dollars but you know after that's over there's still going to be the upkeep and everything else that goes along with it and Congress meaning you got no oversight.

over that whatsoever.

That's one of several headlines we'll be following out of Washington today.

We'll on the much lighter side here from Sharita Booker our social media manager and we will talk about some of this week's events that are coming up.

Let's see right now it's 34 degrees here in the Chippewa Valley right now.

It is a chilly one as we head down to Madison studio A2 where Parker Olson is standing by producing all of the the fun and games down here and Parker Olson as I heard during the newscast

ace reporter Parker Olson.

I also learned yesterday there are some new producers being trained.

He's he's engaged in the training.

Span wears many hats, not just a lot of hair and glasses.

He's he does it all.

My

luscious locks cannot be contained by all

the hats

I wear Mr. Critewell.

Clearly not.

So how are you?

I'm doing pretty well.

I would appreciate it if it got just a little warmer, just a little.

Well, I don't quite

love the crisp in the air when I leave at 5 a.m

Yeah, it is allegedly going to get a little warmer.

That's, you know, yeah, that's what we hear.

But, you know, for the moment, we've got temperatures in the upper 30s, pretty much statewide, 28 in parts of Western Wisconsin, Hudson, New Richmond, Amory, places like that.

It's as warm as 43 in Milwaukee, but also in places like Wapaka, reporting 43.

Who else?

Somebody else nearby there looks to be Shawnau, Appleton and at 43.

But yeah,

a whole lot of 30s.

And a very, very gradual warmup is what's coming up, not the kind where we're not going to see 70 again.

We might not even see 60 in parts of Wisconsin for a while here.

It's that's no fun.

But it's part of the calendar,

you know, 60 is my prime spot.

That's where I

want to

be.

55.

Okay, for full

by all of that works fine.

And especially when I compare it to

the place where I used to live down in the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean there where they're watching a storm system.

And I just remember how much we dreaded this time of year because it was basically it's like rainy season down there where it's cloudy and rainy a lot.

But then any one of those systems could churn into something tropical.

And that's the one thing we're not watching up here right now is does this

current system that's down there churning about, does it become a tropical storm?

Does it become a hurricane?

Does it just become a big old rainmaker?

And are we, are we going to get another six inches of rain, you know, as often happens in places like that?

So I'm just putting in perspective that we all have our weather features.

We don't, we don't have hurricanes.

We also don't have earthquakes, you know, by and large.

And some of the other things that other places do so I

I can handle some thirties, you know.

Yeah, I'll tell you what, earthquakes.

I don't know about you, but earthquakes kind of scare the crap out of me.

I don't know.

Oh, rightly

so.

That

has got to be like the worst natural disaster, like threat, because it's always looming, like it's always possible.

I don't think there's a season for that.

And if it starts like, what do you do to talk about feeling helpless?

Like the earth is literally moving.

It's shaking walls are tumbling, you know.

Yeah, I'm thankful not to be there.

I've, I've been to California, I want to say three times.

And it's been fine each time I haven't I can't quibble with it.

But the, the whole time you're there, you're nervous, you're thinking about that, you know, and

So if somebody said no, Pat, you have to live in California for this job or that job.

I know a lot of people would be like, oh, yeah, go ahead.

I just, I just don't know if I could say yes to that.

Okay.

I guess we're in different places with this.

I would live in California.

Okay.

So you just got done telling me the earthquakes freak you out, but you'd still live there anyway.

Yeah.

You, you would take the risk.

Oh, you know, come on.

Sometimes you just gotta.

You gotta take one for the team.

Yeah.

Sometimes

you take one for the team and live in California.

I really want to get rid of winter and have eternal sunshine.

Well, look, if you're into that, then by all means, take that and the risk of the earthquakes that come along with it.

Like I said, you get the good and the bad with everything no matter where you live.

And what we've got right now are temperatures in the 30s that we'll have to deal with for a little bit longer and then at some point, the foreseeable future.

It won't be long until the 30s.

Sound warm to us.

It's like, could we please get back to the 30s?

So let's keep that in mind.

All right, what else is coming up today?

Well, the families of people with developmental disabilities are especially worried about their future now that Republicans have shut down key government services and are making health insurance less affordable.

And keep in mind this fact, around 80% of women with some form of intellectual disability

Have been sexually assaulted to some degree and so access to contraception and other affordable care is especially important and in our seven o'clock hour We're gonna talk to one mother about the real-life impact of these political games being played by Republicans in the nation's capital and In our eight o'clock hour, we're gonna talk about how political bluster Doesn't lower anyone's grocery bill.

You can talk tough.

You can say all the things you want to say, but are you actually?

doing anything to tame inflation?

Well, that certainly reflected in the latest polling on how the president is handling the economy.

And the latest polling numbers don't even take into account the newest round of anger sweeping Americans now that President Trump has said he wants to give Argentina a massive buyout so massive

The bailout, I should say, is enough to pay for the health insurance discounts that he's taking away from Americans for a year or two.

And now he's offering to import beef from Argentina, which has left a lot of rural voters and consumers wondering who the heck it is they voted for.

We'll talk to Sean O'Malley about that in your money and the markets.

We'll also take note that the state of Wisconsin investment board is to follow up to a story We talked about a couple months back when it was learned that the state investment board had invested somewhat heavily in cryptocurrency which I'm not sure why any Responsible investor would do that, but that's me other people have made that decision and at the time I recall saying something along the lines of

Okay, they're in.

Make these investments as smart as you can, and then get out.

Well, story came out this week that said that's pretty much what the state's investment board did.

They got in, they made a killing, and then they quickly got out.

I mean, back to what we were just talking about with online sports betting.

I mean, that's, that's the model you want is when you win something big, take the winnings, put them in your pocket and go away.

You know, don't put it all back into the rat hole.

And so we'll, we'll ask Sean about crypto and state investment boards and doing things like that.

Talking about sports here for a moment, we've got to get to a brand new season.

Parker the Milwaukee Bucks are underway and we can already talk about your first place Milwaukee Bucks having won their season opener by defeating the lowly Washington Wizards last night 133 to 120.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I guess there was a

wonderful ovation for Chris Middleton.

It was his first game back in Milwaukee since he was dealt at last season's trade deadline.

He got a big ovation in the pregame introductions.

And then during the first time out of the game, the Bucks played a video tribute to him also to a very nice round of applause, which I have to say that there are times when I'm like, don't be so buddy, buddy, you know, you guys are supposed to be opponents, you're supposed to be trying to beat each other's brains in.

But then there's a time when somebody makes a homecoming where, you know, it's okay to do that.

And for Chris Middleton, especially a very well-liked respected teammate.

Oh, yeah.

And so

impactful too for the Bucks.

Oh, God, I don't even know how long I don't follow the Bucks.

That's why I don't know how long, but it seems like a while.

Yeah.

Well, it's like when, when William Domus came back this season, let's go Giants and he gets this big ovation.

Yeah.

And then he.

Launches a home run and it was to me.

That was one of the the funnier points of the season was the mix of applause and booze Like all right, we're happy for you.

Now we hate you.

We still love you.

You get one Homer.

That's it.

But then guess what?

He got another just so frustrating but Roger's already on the bandwagon.

Giannis for MVP.

Yep.

I'm with you Roger puts on Facebook on YouTube Tony writes undefeated

Yep, we got that going for us as well.

This is a weird one to say.

Milwaukee's Gary Trent Jr.

scored 17 points.

Miles Turner had 11 points in his Bucks debut.

We have to learn some new names, including names of people who were rivals previously.

So Miles Turner has been like an all Wisconsin boy in the last like month or so.

I don't follow the Bucks hardly at all.

But to see somebody come on to a team and embrace the culture that is already around that team is so awesome.

It put a smile on my face how much he's been

having

time with Wisconsin sports.

Come on.

That's that's that's all we want.

Well, along with your athletic ability and please win lots of games.

But to also, you know, not be a mercenary, but be a be a neighbor, be a part of the community.

And we appreciate that very much.

So hopefully that'll make the buck season a little bit more enjoyable.

The Bucks, by the way, their second game of the season will be in Toronto.

come Friday.

All right, still ahead.

We're going to be talking about the wrecking crew and later we'll get to today's history lesson.

A more weird Al Jankovic.

He's got a lot in this week's history lessons.

That's all coming up from the heart of America's up north.

Live from Lake Wissota, I'm Pat Crightlow from Up North News.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Welcome back.

It is 622 on a Thursday morning time to look ahead to the weekend.

And that's where we turn to Up North News social media manager, Sharita Booker, who finds all of these things online because she's busy posting all these things online that we do.

Look for Up North News, wi on your favorite social media platform.

Sharita, how you doing?

I'm doing good.

How are

you?

Good.

Good.

Now I know we've got Halloween next week.

We've talked about it a little bit.

But we are still very much in fall festival season.

But one community has figured out how to combine the two, a little spooky Halloween stuff, a little fall festival stuff.

Let's get things started in Beaver Dam.

The eighth annual fall downtown fest and the fourth annual casket races kick off this Saturday in Beaver Dam.

Sorry, I just want to make sure in case anybody missed it.

It's the all downtown fest and casket races.

Yes,

casket.

It's an all-day celebration packed with family fun and you can start your morning with the vendor market at the watermark from 9 a.m.

to 2 p.m.

Full of local crafts, gifts, and treats plus food served up by the American Legion Auxiliary.

Then bring the kids downtown for trigger treating from 10 a.m.

to 3 p.m.

Businesses will be handing out candy all afternoon.

There will also be a pumpkin decorating or be pumpkin decorating, costume contests, games, food trucks, and even a Chamber of Mystery at the Beaver Dam Chamber and Visitor Center.

Casca Racing, which starts at 130 is a fast paced event where teams push decorated caskets on wheels down South Spring Street.

It's a mix of competition and creativity, with the team showing off their designs and costumes as they race for a thousand dollar prize.

And then the Monster Bar Crawl is from 5 to 11 p.m.

where adults can enjoy Halloween themed cocktails and live music at local bars.

So for the full schedule of events, visit beaverdamchamber.com.

This is that this has to be the most well-rounded Celebration trick-or-treating for the kids a monster bar crawl and casket races somewhere in the middle That's the first I've heard is amazing.

All right, so that's beaver dam You heard the website so let's let's move on let's go over to Milwaukee's downtown and what have they got going on this weekend

They have the annual Jack O'Lantern Jubilee which is downtown Saturday from 11 a.m.

to 2 p.m.

at the Bear Community Commons and it's completely free and this event will feature complimentary pumpkins while they last, a decorating station hosted by artists working in education.

face painting, balloon art, and a live DJ set by Kid Boogie Down.

There will also be a special Goosebumps performance by First Stage and Halloween Goody Bags and plenty of surprises along the way.

The Halloween Village is back and bigger than ever with magical displays and photo ops.

And make sure to grab a sweet treat for the kiddos at Amy's Candy's Apples, Andy Cammie Candy Apples, or Ben & Jerry's.

So for more details, visit MilwaukeeDowntown.com.

Milwaukee downtown.com.

Everybody welcome, except Josh Showman, Eric, Tony, and any other politicians that like to bash Milwaukee.

You clearly are too afraid to show up on a Saturday afternoon in downtown.

So everybody else, come on down.

And our last stop is going to be Oak Creek.

Yep, Oak Creek Fall Festival is back Saturday from 9 a.m.

to 4 p.m.

at Drexel Tom Square.

You'll find nearly 100 vendors, live entertainment, hay rise, pumpkin decorating, and even a petting zoo.

Kids can get their face painted, meet farm animals, or show off their costume in the kids costume parade at 12.30.

There will also be storytime in the library, magic shows, caricatures, and inflatable corn maze.

It's also the last day of the Oak Creek Farmers Market.

So you can grab some fresh produce, bake goods, and local favorites while you're there.

Live music will run all day on the main stage, starting with EP, jazz combo, and the Jake Warren duo to close things out.

It's free to attend and a great way to enjoy the outdoors while the temps are still bearable here in Wisconsin.

So for more details, visit oldcreekwi.gov.

Hold on.

Hold on.

This might

be the most suburban thing I've ever heard of.

An

inflatable corn maze.

Yeah, that's what it's like in the city.

That's hilarious.

I love this.

What a great collection of things that Sharita Booker puts together for us.

And then we'll get set for Halloween next week.

Sharita, thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

Have a great start to the weekend.

Thank you, Tupa.

By

the

way, that's not the only stuff you can do this weekend.

There's Wapaka, has the Halloween on Main Street this weekend.

Whitefish Bay has their Great Pumpkin Festival.

Eagle River has Hollow Fest and the Medford Chamber Harvest Days are all going on this weekend.

Head over at troublewisconsin.com to learn much more.

All right, well, in national news, of course, you

By now, I've seen the pictures, even though the Trump administration doesn't want you to see the pictures, that it's no longer just the east facade of the White House that's being torn down.

It's the flip and east wing.

Just a massive demolition that nobody would be able to get away with otherwise without a series of, let me take you back to civics class here.

Remember checks and balances?

You know, I mean,

Do you think Chief Justice John Roberts could just go and tear down the marble columns outside of there?

It's not how it's supposed to work unless of course you're an authoritarian monarch and then you do whatever you can do and make people have to stop you.

So he's getting away with it to this point, but it's not shall we say endearing him to people, you know, the polling numbers are not looking good and this doesn't help.

Here's the other thing that doesn't help.

The president is doing a shakedown.

of you, the American taxpayer.

Now at first it appears like he's engaged in a mob boss style shakedown of the Department of Justice, all right?

Because again, the convicted criminal was elected president and is now shaking down the Department of Justice because he gets to run it now and is demanding a quarter billion dollars to cover all of the expenses and pain and suffering of him being prosecuted, you know, for the crimes that he committed.

And it's not that he's shaking down bureaucrats in DC.

If he gets this money, he's getting it from you and me, the taxpayer.

That's how this works.

Is that really what people voted for?

Was to say, sure, sure, Mr. Trump, how much money would you like me to give you?

And then, of course, there's the news that Trump once again says he was surprised, surprised that Vladimir Putin says one thing but does another when it comes to Ukraine.

And so the president is announcing a new round of sanctions.

I don't know if they'll work as well as all the other ones did, but you can imagine my shock to find out that Trump was shocked that Vladimir Putin wasn't on the up and up with him about Ukraine.

And this is the guy we got running.

Thanks.

Today's history lesson is coming up next.

Remember, follow what we do at UpNorthNewsWI.com or search for NewsWI on social media.

I'm Pat Kratlow, the Civic Media Radio Network.

Today's history lesson gets started with Dwight Yocum

Dwight

Yocum 69 years old today kicking off today's history lesson which

has a little bit of a local bent to things today.

First off, happy birthday to Channel 7 up in Warsaw.

WSAW TV, which signed on this day in 1954 as WSAU TV and then would change its call letters to WSAW in 1981.

It's been a CBS station pretty much for the whole run, although at times it also belonged to the Dumont television network.

The Dumont television network, basically the Edsel of television networks.

Neither one got past the 1950s.

OK,

good.

I was going to say I am so unfamiliar with that.

I feel like I should have seen that while I was looking for

a job.

Nope, nope, absolutely not.

No reason to be familiar with Dumont at all.

Also, on this day in 1921, the Green Bay Packers

played their first ever game in the American Professional Football Association, the forerunner to the National Football League.

And in that first game in 1921, they beat the Minneapolis Marines seven to six at Hagemeister Park in Green Bay.

So from the very, from the very beginning, the team from Green Bay has been dominant over the team from Minnesota.

Of course.

That's

Minneapolis Marines because, you know, city of lakes.

That's the best I got.

On this day in 1961, the number one song was by Dion.

Run Around Who is the number one song this day, 64 years ago.

On this day in 2001, Apple Computer released the iPod.

Boy, that changed everything.

It really did.

I mean, and it caught on because Microsoft had, what was it called, the Zoom?

I think it was.

And then there were all these other MP3 players.

I had one that looked like a brick.

I forget who made it now.

And then the iPod came along and everybody was like, oh, that's way better.

Let's use that.

And that's what we've been ever since.

I don't

remember if I had an iPod, did you?

Oh, yeah, yeah, because the iPhone didn't come along for another five years or so.

Okay.

I remember having

the iPod touch.

Everybody had your iPod to go along with your Palm Pilot or your BlackBerry.

Those were the big phones at the time.

Until once again, Apple came along with the iPhone and people were like, Oh yeah, that's better.

Because now my music is in my phone too.

And now it's in my Apple Watch right here.

And pretty soon it'll be the brain chip up here.

Just take my money.

Take my money.

That's how it worked.

Also in today's history lesson, the late Johnny Carson, the king of late night, was born this day 100 years ago.

This would be Johnny Carson's 100th birthday.

He passed away at 80 back in 2005.

A serious note in today's history lesson from 1983 when US peacekeepers in Lebanon were attacked.

The Marine Corps barracks was hit by a truck bomb.

killing 241 Marines and other personnel.

All right, let's move up to 2018 right now.

And you're going to hear a song on today's history lesson that is not the same as the song we talked about the other day.

And that's all because on this day in 2018, the Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, starring Rami Malik, premiered.

Not, not Harry Belifonte.

Not the banana boat song.

Parker.

I thought

that this was the origin of this.

Not the banana boat.

I totally, totally understand how you get that from the very beginning.

But back to the move.

Did you see Bohemian Rhapsody?

No, I did not.

Oh, yeah, I think you'd really like that.

And you don't have to be a big Queen fan to appreciate the movie.

But anyway, Rami Malik did a great job.

He did not do all the singing in it.

The film used an amalgamation of his voice, some original recording from Freddie Mercury, the vocals of a Canadian singer, Mark Martell.

And so it was an interesting bit of high tech so that it wasn't just all Freddie, not all all Rami, but still a very nice film all the way around.

That was on this day in 2018.

There was something else going on that day in 2018.

Megan Kelly set the stage for her firing from NBC after making comments supporting Blackface on her NBC morning show.

It was the last straw after a string of awkward interviews, hostile interviews, lackluster ratings.

She made a tearful apology a day or two later.

but then was fired a day or two after that.

And afterwards, and since that time, you know, same old Megan Kelly, you know, the one who said it's a quote, historical fact that Jesus Christ, a man born in the Middle East, was a white man.

You do you, Megan Kelly.

Is this, Weird Al Jankovic is next on the list.

Is this not the third time we've mentioned Weird Al this week?

Are we?

I think it's the third time.

Oh, yeah.

Yep.

Well, there's a reason for it today.

It has nothing to do with a record being released or novelty songs or anything like that.

It's Weird Al's birthday.

Weird Al

Jankovic is 66 years old today.

He gave us, of course, I love Rocky Road and the Hamilton Polka and just a ton of other songs.

and, yeah, 66 years old today.

I forgot about the Hamilton polka.

Isn't it good?

I really liked it.

Actor Ryan Reynolds is 49 years old today.

And Chicago had the number one song on the day that Ryan Reynolds was born this day in 1976.

This song confused a lot of people.

Wait a minute.

This is Chicago the pan with all the trumpets the horns the horn band the brass band that that Chicago What's this?

Well, what this was was written by Peter Cetera sung by him as well And it became Chicago's first number one hit and it led to their first Grammy Awards as well at which point They were like as we've talked about a lot.

There's a lot of groups that start as rock and roll Then they realize there's money to be made in Schmaltz

And it was all love ballads and things after that point because the answer to all your questions is money 1976 the number one song Let's see Beyonce released irreplaceable irreplaceable on this day in 2006

This the song was originally a country record when it was first written it was rearranged as a mid-tempo ballad with pop and R&D influences Lyrics were juggled a bit to make it more of a girl power song It was nominated for the Grammy's record of the year and it became Beyonce's fourth number one in the US released this day 19 years ago on this day 50 years ago speaking of girl power 1975

90% of the women in Iceland stopped working to protest the gender pay gap, and the unequal distribution of unpaid labor, they essentially shut down the country for the day.

They made their point, because not long after that an equal rights law would be passed to address what had been a glaring gender pay gap in Iceland.

90%?

Yep.

Yep.

That is incredible.

We're not showing up for work.

We're not, we're not babysitting your kid if they're doing daycare.

Just everything that they were doing, they just stopped doing for a day.

And you hear people talk all the time about, Oh, there needs to be a general strike, a general strike.

A general strike is not an easy thing to pull off boys and girls.

But the girls did that in Iceland this day 50 years ago.

All right, it's, it's not often that we do a double play, a double shot, a twin spin, but

You're about to get a double dose of Adele because on this day in 2012, the 23rd James Bond film was released and Adele sang the title track, The

Skyfall.

It is quite

possible that Skyfall was the last James Bond film that I've seen and that was 13 years ago.

I don't have the list in front of me, but it Skyfall sure feels to me like that was that was the one with Dame Judy Denshin and she was she was wonderful in that in that film and I don't really know if I've seen any of the Bond film since

I don't think I have ever seen any Bond films

Okay, we're gonna we're gonna pause the show here for just a moment folks so that all of our audience can can go as they often go Parker

Hope you've not seen any James Bond films any any any I don't okay.

All right folks You know what to do you got to get in the comment sections right now and you've got to give a recommendation because you know what?

They are not all good.

I was gonna say there's so many they

cannot all be

good.

Some of some of them are absolute turkeys.

I will be the first to admit it.

Some of them and some of them got a little bit darker just a little too much on the torture and stuff like that.

But there are yep, Tony right there in YouTube.

What?

How many question marks and exclamation points can you get in there?

But there and now Skyfall was a pretty good one.

And like I said, I've only seen

I don't know, somewhere between five and 10 myself, but there, there are a couple of really good ones in there.

So I'm hoping that some James Bond fans will help, help a Parker out.

Okay.

And give your recommendations on what, what Parker should see one of these weekends when he finally catches up with, uh, you know, civilization.

So that was, that was Adele singing along to skyfall in 2012, three years later.

Adele released a new single.

It was the first single with more than a million downloads in its first week in 2015.

So 10 years ago today, do you remember when she first said to everybody stepping up to the

microphone?

Have you seen the Saturday Night Live skit about this one with the family around Thanksgiving dinner?

Oh, I think so.

It

sounds very, very dysfunctional family and they're arguing and everything and then suddenly Adele's hello comes on and they all just get very tranquil and they all get into the song and they all love each other

again.

It's just such a

good thing.

Adele lives specifically in the early 2010s to me and in zero other timeline.

in all of history.

Sure.

The Beatles in the 60s.

Yeah, very well defined there.

Oh, Alicia found the keyboard on Snow Parker.

How is this possible?

Yeah, that's in the James Bond film.

Tony jumps back in and says Daniel Craig is really good as Bond.

I personally really like Pierce Brosnan.

Me too, Tony, and certain other people that I know, big Pierce Brosnan fans.

And I actually thought he would do a couple of more films.

But Daniel Craig was really good from the get go.

as James Bond.

But I grew up, of course, in the 70s, Roger Moore was James Bond.

And, you know, others who have played him as well throughout the years.

There's always this rumor out there that Idris Elba is going to play him in some future movies.

I don't know if anything's going to become of that.

But there you go.

A little catching up for Parker to do.

on James Bond.

What do we got for the national day calendar today?

It is

crack day.

The shoes crocs croc day like the shoes crocs.

Yes.

I'm a big fan of cracks.

Although I do not have an anymore.

I turned out I had one pair accidentally.

I really like the pair of sandals.

And one day I looked at them and I'm like, oh, they're croc sandals.

Well, I guess I like crocs now.

What else?

You mentioned earlier iPod.

It is iPod day.

It is also slap your

coworker day.

which is why we do this by distance.

We found out the virtual shows work better on days like this.

And one more.

It is also TV talk show host day.

Not quite

ready, but we're close.

Nope.

Nope.

We're just going to talk show host.

All right.

Don't be leaving out those radio people.

People.

You got that?

Okay.

Happy TV show host day for Johnny Carson's 100th birthday.

Alicia recommends Casino Royale and we will pause here.

I'm Pat Kratlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

time.

All right, you can get our daily newsletter at Up North News, head over to UpNorthNewsWI.com and get yourself signed up.

Hit subscribe up in the banner up at the top of the page there.

And just taking a look at some of the things that Ellie is putting into today's newsletter, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Here are ways that you can help.

help with breast cancer awareness month, help yourself with early detection and things like that.

So we've got that in there.

And also our story about Halle Berry, we talked about yesterday how she did a press conference and then later testified virtually to a legislative committee.

about menopause and women's health and the need to put more resources into things like education, public education about menopause, treatment of symptoms.

And so all that and more is in our daily newsletter.

Head over to upnorthnewswi.com to learn more.

6.53 right now.

And before we took a break, we were educating Mr. Parker Olson.

esteemed producer here on Mornings with Pat Kratlow, powered by a Perth News on the Civic Media Radio Network, about James Bond films and whether you would recommend any in particular and just before the break, both Alicia and Tony highly recommended Casino Royale, although Tony also puts up on YouTube, you have to watch GoldenEye just from the massively popular GoldenEye on

Nintendo 64 back in the day also has Sean Bean as the villain.

So a nice connection to Game of Thrones.

Oh,

I

did not know that did not see that coming.

When I,

when I think Sean Bean, I think Lord of the Rings and national treasure.

That's my generation.

Oh, I suppose.

Yes, that would be yours.

And then some of us are in the Game of Thrones cycle.

I could hear people yelling at the radio when we we rattled off some of the James Bond characters, you know, Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan and others going, Hello, Sean Connery, the first James Bond.

I was and again, Parker's generations of you're going, Wait, the guy from Celebrity Jeopardy.

You know, laughing at Will Ferrell's Alex Trebek.

Yeah, same guy, but he was a lot younger than Dr. No, from 1962.

And from Russia with love in 1963, Goldfinger from 1964.

That's one that a lot of people say is like, that's, that's just your classic bond right there.

Thunderball in 1965, you only live twice in 1967.

And then apparently, I don't know, he was done because the next

James Bond in one and only one movie was the utterly forgettable George Lazenby in 1969 for on Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Sean Connery did Diamonds Are Forever in 1971 and then Roger Moore took over.

And so a lot of us grew up with movies like Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me.

By the time they got to Moonraker in 79 and for your eyes only in 81, it was just like, okay, we might be done with this.

But no, there were more.

There was Octopussy in 1983, View to a Kill in 1985.

And then it was turned over to the also utterly forgettable Timothy Dalton, which

Does anybody remember the living daylights from 1987?

No.

No, you do not.

Licensed to kill in 1989.

They then turned things over to Pierce Brosnan, who did Golden Eye in 95.

Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day.

Also, he did four of them before Daniel Craig came along.

And Daniel Craig's Casino Royale was 2006, which yes, I would say that that was his first Bond movie and was extremely good.

It was followed by Quantum of Solace.

which was a little darker, I was a little more iffy, and then Skyfall in 2012.

And at that point, I was like, okay, I feel like I've seen enough of these.

So I have not seen Spectre, which was 10 years ago now, 2015, and No Time to Die from 2021.

So if there are if there are new ones in the works, I don't know who's playing them or when they might be coming out, or much like Marvel movies, have they run their course?

Well, I was going to say is, because I don't know, clearly, I don't know.

Are James Bond films all like in one canonical

timeline?

No, no, no, they they they learned long ago.

Game of Thrones are like, we're now just making stuff up as we go.

Okay.

Yeah.

You have to.

It's the same with Marvel.

It's just and now all of the the Batman movies.

How many origin stories of Batman and Spider-Man have we seen over time?

Yeah, because

Every generation wants their own origin story and then a couple of sequels and then you start over again rinse repeat.

Yeah

Okay, do you have some you have some better entertainment news for us?

We can get off the James Bond thing here now What do you what else you got a

little entertainment news the NFL is keeping bed Bunny as a Super Bowl halftime performer despite a lot of whining

Um,

a lot of Oh, my God, so much whining.

People do you hear yourselves good?

Oh, bad buddy.

Not an American man.

Speak English.

So many people want George straight.

George straight, which again, I know country legend.

Everybody likes him.

All right.

Fine.

Get a stage put it at the 50 yard line.

Put a stool on the stage next to a mic stand.

Put a piece of white toast on the stool.

Let it sing.

And that'll make people happy as long as it's not bad bunny that you know, they will take vanilla George straight anytime.

So let me just say, there are a lot of geniuses out there who got on social media, and know that George straight did this wonderful song in Spanish called L Ray.

And they are so on the money saying bad bunny and George straight need to come out together on stage and do a version of L Ray.

That is genius.

That is your Coca-Cola.

I'd like to teach the world to sing a moment right there if we could get that.

So all you folks who just want George straight, stop it.

Let's get George straight and Bad Bunny Tony on YouTube.

That would be amazing, right?

And then, you know, maybe get a few other people out there, maybe get Beyonce, you know, get all this.

What's the word I'm looking for?

Diversity.

Donald Trump's mind go.

I just made myself so happy.

You know why?

Because it would make a lot of other Americans happy too to see that, you know, there's so much that unites us about music and about appreciation for each other's cultures and that for at least a moment, the dividers and the haters, the ones who want to undermine what's already planned for the Super Bowl can just sit down and shut up and enjoy this wonderful spectacle that could be put on starting with as it should.

Bad Bunny.

I think that'd be awesome.

So much more ahead for the next two hours powered by Up North News.

These are mornings with Pat Krightlow here on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Again, follow us at UpNorthNewsWI.com.

So much more ahead right after the news here on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Live, across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglo powered by Up North News.

Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglo.

Hey, good morning.

It is 706.

Nice to have you back here up north on a Thursday morning, October 23rd, 2025.

Parker Olson producing things down in Madison Studio A2.

Not just producing.

Turns out he's an aspiring news journalist and is going to tell us all about that story you might have just missed in the newscast coming up in just a little bit.

And also ahead this hour, we're going to be talking to a guest, Megan Lowe, about how

Some of the recent political moves that are impacting healthcare access and affordability are hurting mothers and their medical decisions when it comes to some of their children who might have developmental or other disabilities.

So listen for that coming up at 735.

And then in our next hour, we'll talk to Joseph Pecky as well as Chad Holmes from our civic media station in Warsaw.

And Sean O'Malley will be along to talk about your money and the markets.

We'll talk a little state investment.

in cryptocurrency.

We'll talk a little why is Trump sending enough money to Argentina that could pay to keep our health insurance premiums from going up kind of stuff.

That's all ahead in our eight o'clock hour.

So a lot of ground to cover here.

But I also wanted to take note of something that came up in our eight o'clock hour yesterday with our friend Earl Ingram.

And as we were talking about his podcast that you can find here at civicmedia.us.

I made mention of a New York Times article that was especially critical of the prospect of former Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes running for governor, as has been rumored that Mandela Barnes is thinking about getting into the race.

He would be

propelled immediately to at or near the front of the pack having Abe and Lieutenant Governor and B run a very close campaign against Senator Ron Johnson back in 2022 where he lost by the smallest margin ever in Wisconsin U.S.

Senate election history.

And of course, I've had a lot to say about whether it was so much that Mandela Barnes lost the race, or that Ron Johnson's billionaire buddies were able to scare enough people about Mandela Barnes to help Ron Johnson win.

But whether whatever you believe is the case, there are clearly people that look at the former Lieutenant Governor and say, well, he lost in 2022.

And so if he couldn't win that statewide race against somebody as unpopular as Ron Johnson, they don't want to take a chance on him next time around.

And there wasn't much for direct quotes in there.

There was one direct quote from former Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton, who said something along the lines of that, you know, he proved that he wasn't running hard enough and couldn't win the campaign on a statewide basis.

And so there is clear that there is some unease there, but Earl Ingram yesterday was very critical of the report, said that the New York Times reporter

had meant to call him Earl, but it did not for his own comment and take on the race and really stuck with just the critics of Mandela Barnes.

And that would be enough of a story if it stopped right there.

But then yesterday from a Black-owned newspaper in the city of Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Courier,

comes the editorial that reads, we can't afford to lose in 2026 and we can't risk another Mandela Barnes loss.

And again, it was highly critical, especially in this sense, that even though Mandela Barnes came close and the primary field had cleared for him to take on Ron Johnson, he lost by some 26,000 votes

But not just that he ran about 50,000 votes behind Governor Tony Evers who you'll recall was on the ballot for a reelection that year and that even in Milwaukee County Mandela Barnes ran behind Tony Evers in other words reads the editorial he couldn't finish the deal

And the editorial says, let's be clear.

This is not personal.

Mandela's story is one of promise.

He's bright.

He's passionate.

But this moment is not about promise.

It's about performance and politics.

You earn your next opportunity by delivering on the last one.

And in 2022, Mandela didn't.

That Senate seat was ours to win.

He had national support.

He had resources.

He had the attention.

And still he came up short.

And what's more, it says, instead of spending the past two years organizing here at home, building bridges, proving he learned from that loss, what we've seen is a campaign and waiting with no clear rationale other than a desired try again.

And that's not enough.

Now, I would take issue with that on a couple of fronts here that Mandela Barnes has hardly been spending his time twiddling his thumbs and waiting for the next race.

He has worked with a group forward together Wisconsin that has tried to match new federal green energy resources with homeowners and with school districts and more.

The East Form Day Political Action Committee designed to help other candidates to make a run for office.

He's appeared on this show a couple of times.

I am not in any way telling you that Mandela Barnes ran a perfect campaign for US Senate.

He didn't.

He fell short.

But he also went up against the the buzz saw of literal billionaires who literally made millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars, because Ron Johnson gave them a sweetheart tax deal in the 2017 tax bill.

And they were willing to take those hundreds of millions of dollars

in taxes they no longer had to pay meaning you and I had to make up the difference in the taxes that these billionaires weren't paying and instead they put that money into a Ron Johnson campaign so I'm not here to tell you that anybody would have necessarily beat Ron Johnson even though the man is consistently underwater he's not popular in the state but every year at election time he or his cronies find just enough negative material just enough negative ads

to for Ron Johnson to squeak out narrow victories.

And while I would guess not run for a fourth term in 2028, if you were to run, that would probably be the formula again.

But the question here is about whether Mandela Barnes is the right choice to run for governor.

And as noted in some of the reaction to this editorial, you know, there are people in the Milwaukee area that

still are unhappy that Mandela Barnes, when he was in the state assembly, ran a primary challenge against fellow Democratic state Senator Lena Taylor.

And that just gets us into the whole inside baseball of Milwaukee politics overall.

And by the way, that's not just a Milwaukee thing.

There's inside politics about, you know, Chippewa Valley politics that we could talk about.

And we've talked before about the eighth district, the eighth congressional district in Northeast Wisconsin.

And especially on the Republican side, there's a lot of inside baseball that most voters frankly don't want to hear about.

But it's real.

And it's what gets in the way of, you know, races that are are clear and not filled with primaries that can get messy.

And that's definitely the case in Milwaukee.

I've watched that for decades.

And I know how

you know, there in when you get into regional politics like Milwaukee, the Chippewa Valley, Northeast Wisconsin elsewhere, the clicks are worthy of high school.

You know, who likes who who doesn't like who and it gets rather annoying sometimes if you're just a observer.

If you're inside of one of those clicks, you actually have real genuine feelings, not of love of your fellow Republican or your fellow Democrat.

I will be the first one to say publicly that I have said privately many a time, there were some Republicans in the legislature that I got along with better than a couple of Democrats in the state capital.

People that I would, you know, be very happy to have seen replaced and that I could have worked more with a couple of moderate Republicans and there are moderate Republicans who feel the same way about some of their Republican brethren.

So having set the stage that not everybody in politics gets along even if they're of the same political party.

You have to open up the blinders and ask yourself, okay, can this candidate win?

That's what Democrats are facing in the third congressional district right now.

They're looking at Becca Cook.

This is now her third time running in the third congressional district.

The last time around, she ran as the Democratic nominee.

She fell short against Derek Van Orden.

And you have very clear

Sets of Democrats there some who believe she is almost there a little bit more support and we can finally You know have representation other than Derek van Orden in the third congressional district and others who say nope She's peaked that's as close as she's gonna get it is time to try somebody new That's why you have the primaries and if Mandela Barnes wants to get into a primary for governor He's going to get into the primary and he's going to have to answer these questions about why he trailed governor Evers

in Milwaukee County voting in 2022.

Why it is that some Democrats in the Milwaukee area, in the fourth congressional district, just don't warm up to him.

You'll have to address that if he wants to get in.

And if he answers those questions to the satisfaction of others, same as Becca Cook in the third congressional district or in some of the legislative districts where there are now multiple Democrats running for office, well, then that builds you a stronger nominee.

Hopefully, not always.

There are times when primaries are absolutely destructive.

The quintessential example for me is the 2012 primary among Republicans for U.S.

Senate.

That's how Tammy Baldwin got elected.

Tammy Baldwin, people did not give her easy odds of winning, but Tommy Thompson, the former governor, emerged from a bruising three-way Republican primary.

The Republicans at the end of that primary cycle hated each other and there was not a lot of instant general election support for Tommy Thompson.

Tammy Baldwin masterfully took advantage of that and made sure people understood how much more moderate, easygoing, sensible, sane she was compared to a dysfunctional field on the other side of the aisle.

won that election and has proven herself again and now again running for a third term.

So primaries are just a way of life in this system.

And Mandela Barnes will have to expect that one way or the other if he decides to run for governor.

And he hasn't decided that yet, at least not publicly that we know about.

But I thought it was important that we talk about the fact that unlike when he ran for Senate,

The decks are not going to clear.

The sea is not going to part.

And other primary challengers say, you know, he is going to be the most popular one.

Let's coalesce behind him.

It's not going to happen this time.

He or Sarah Rodriguez or David Crawley or Kilda Roy's or Francesca Hong or Missy Hughes, they're going to have to earn it.

But if they earn it in a primary that stays above board, that does not devolve into what the Republicans did in 2012,

then they have that much better odds of that nominee being able to hold on to the governor's office in Wisconsin.

Because in a cycle where Donald Trump is as unpopular as any president has ever been, if Democrats cannot ride that wave to holding the governor's office, taking over the assembly and the Senate, and maybe even sweeping some Republican incumbents like Derek Van Orden out of office.

Well, that will have been a terrible opportunity lost primarily because of inside politics.

And that's not what anybody wants to see.

In sports, the NBA season is underway and the Milwaukee Bucks won their opener at home against the Washington Wizards, 133 to 120.

Giannis Andatacumpo put up 37 points, 14 rebounds and five assists.

There was a very hearty welcome back for former teammate Chris Middleton, who's now with Washington, big standing ovation during pregame introductions.

Another big ovation when they played a video tribute to him during the first time out of the game.

So it was the best of all things.

You got to welcome back an old friend.

And at the same time, beat him and his old team, the kind of thing we should have done a better job of with William Domus.

But that's another story.

Coming up in 15 minutes, we're going to talk to our guest Megan Lowe about how Republican political moves have been hurting families who are about to see health care costs spike.

And that's especially harmful for families that have a member with developmental or other disabilities.

That's all coming up live from the heart of America's up north here on Lake Wissota.

I'm Pat Whitlow from Up North News.

This is a radio network.

It is a chilly morning across Wisconsin 33 degrees right now here in the Chippewa Valley where

We turned down to Madison Studio A2 and Parker Olson, who apparently is moonlighting.

When he's not busy pulling today's history lesson songs and writing all the teases that I keep forgetting to read and all the other things that keep the show stitched together, he's found time to do reports for Civic Media News, which is really cool.

I want to play the little 60 minutes stopwatch in the background.

I'm Parker Olson and he's doing stories.

Some of us went to go fill our coffee cups, either for real or metaphorically.

What did we miss?

What was today's report there, Mr. Olson?

The report that you heard earlier today was about Tammy Baldwin.

She sent a letter, I believe, on Tuesday to, again, I forget exactly what the name of the company is.

Canadian Pacific Kansas City, which is the most tongue twister name of all time, to that railroad company about a derailment that happened in August in Dodge County.

Very close to where another derailment two years ago was also by that company.

So she is asking for a little accountability from them to hear what they've been doing.

to kind of write the ship a little bit and make that more safe with those derailments.

I can just say again from a legislator standpoint it doesn't matter if it's the Canadian Pacific Kansas City Railroad or you know Canadian National or and all of those that have existed.

The response from them is something along the lines of you may direct your comments to this brick wall because railroads are

notorious for writing the guarantees that they were given in law well over a hundred years ago when they were laying tracks across the country and they were given immense tracks of land, they were given immense power when it comes to our transportation system and there is no shortage of ways that lawmakers and others have approached railroads to ask them to do this or do that and the railroads have said

Oh, we don't have to, so we're not gonna.

So Senator Baldwin is right to call them out publicly then and say, you know, this is going to be on you to have these kinds of derailments that cause these kinds of, you know, safety hazards to workers, to the public and others.

She has been, like you said, a longtime supporter of rail safety legislation.

But you have to get a Congress that's willing to pass those things into law in order to hold the railroads accountable.

But that was a, you know, that was definitely a worthy story of doing.

And do you have any other impressions of, you know, what what the senator had to say or what what was happening with the other railroad here?

As of right now, no, I don't think there's too much more than I've got.

I do real ones in Wisconsin or something that I've been following for a couple months now.

So

it piques my interest there.

Oh, as well, it should.

I mean, you know, parts of Wisconsin still remember very vividly the derailment and why we got, which in the late 90s, had to clear out an entire town for something like two weeks, you know, because of the hazardous chemicals that were on board.

We have a rail system in this country that is so in need of upgrades.

I mean, we talk about infrastructure in all sorts of ways.

And

we should be doing so much more with our rail.

You hear me talking about passenger rail a lot, but our freight rail system is in need of that as well.

And so, you know, that's that's exactly the kind of thing that we need to be working on.

And that Senator Baldwin is right to identify as a potential problem.

Is that the only that's is that the only story you've done for for newscasts lately?

Or have you worked on some others here?

Um, lately, it's probably

Fair to

say that's all you can tell how close I pay attention when that when it when it's not my turn to yap I you know right away just gaze into the distance here and think about my grocery list.

I've had a couple of reports.

That is the second one I've had on train derailments.

There's a longer kind of feature ish story about train derailments on the civic media dot US website.

It's got a map of all the train derailments in Wisconsin over the last couple of years that I made.

but also got a couple Korean Hendricks and I actually got to interview her sometime this summer during a childcare protest at the Capitol.

They have a couple of things here and there, not a ton, hoping to do more.

Look at that.

What do they pay you like a hundred bucks a story or something when you do that?

What's the going rate these days?

I wish it was.

I wish I was aware.

I

should have

negotiated that.

totally made up.

Nope.

And now, now I've got shawly and sage and everybody mad at me like, don't tell me gets paid per story.

Like, well, who am I if I'm not stirring the pot a little bit here.

So no, those are those are great.

Let's see, there's also new stories in our daily newsletter at Up North News for you to follow.

But more than stories now, we're starting to get your fall color pictures in here.

And I'm looking at what Ellie put out this morning.

Our Thursday newsletter, you can sign up again over at UpNorthNewsWI.com, click subscribe in the top banner.

And there is a drone photo here.

from Megan who said her husband John took this shot from his drone in Hayward and it looks to be about I don't know 200 feet up maybe and just a forest as far as the eye can see and so many different colors and it just serves to remind me that I

I've got a drone, but I haven't used it in so long.

And this would have been the perfect time to do that.

I've been a little gun shy since I had little drone accidents.

Uh-oh.

Now that I've got it repaired, you think I'd get out there and start using it again, but I'm a little gun shy.

I would love to get a drone.

When I was a kid, we had remote control helicopters, but I haven't had an actual drone.

That would be fun, especially with a camera on it.

Yes.

Oh yeah.

It can be really fun.

But the funny thing is I'm on the ground.

Okay.

I'm on the ground.

And yet looking at the monitor as I'm doing this thing, I start to get like a little, a little woozy and I'm like, Oh, don't don't go too high.

Don't worry, Pat.

You're not the one that's up there.

And yet here I am being overly cautious.

It's like crashing it and proving why I'm not a pilot.

It's like when you look up and you're like in Miller Park or something like that, you look up at the roof.

It's like, Oh

God.

No, so some people are meant to work at those levels and the rest of us really ought to just stay on the ground and be more careful with our drones.

We're going to talk about spiking health insurance costs and the problem with coverage for families with disabilities coming up.

I'm Pat Crightlow from UpNorth News.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

This next topic is a little more on the mature side when it comes to politics policy and the real world impact on people and includes discussions about sexual assaults, but also about the medical decisions that have to be made by families.

It gets beyond the, what I would say is just outright game playing that's happening in places like the nation's capital right now.

where healthcare to some people just seems to be a case of numbers on a spreadsheet and that these are very generic concerns.

But when it comes to people, families with people who have developmental and other disabilities, this is no game.

And we're not just talking about the medications that people need on a daily basis.

There is, for an example, a statistic that says somewhere around

80% of women who have developmental disabilities or intellectual disabilities, around 80% have been sexually assaulted at some point in life.

And so access to things like contraception and the full range of reproductive health care services is vitally important.

and yet is under threat in so many ways through Medicaid cuts, through cuts to premium tax credits that make health insurance affordable through the Affordable Care Act and much more.

It's these kinds of real issues that Megan Lowe has to deal with with her daughter, Nora, and she joins us now to talk to us about that from the Merrimack area.

Megan, good morning.

How are you?

Good morning Pat.

We're doing great here.

Good and You have Nora there with you as well.

Can you tell us just a little bit about Nora's story?

Sure Nora is 17 years old.

She has what is called ret syndrome RETT.

It's a neurological disorder It affects everything she does but she is

a 17 year old inside.

So she understands us.

It's just her expressive language and her body control that really hinder her

daily life.

Yeah, it's a case of, like you said, muscle control, speaking, walking, seizures are a feature as well.

And this is something that does not currently have a cure, as I understand.

Correct.

No, there are just ways to mitigate

symptoms.

So that that takes us to the need for all sorts of affordable health insurance resources.

And I am going to assume that you are not independently wealthy, and that health insurance and medications and things for Nora are are probably a constant

struggle.

We actually, we do have private insurance, but a lot of our private insurance doesn't, they don't cover a lot of her daily needs.

Those are picked up by Medicaid.

Like her formulas, she eats through a G-tube.

All of her syringes, diapers, wipes are even some of the durable medical equipment our private insurance does not cover.

So I'm really worried to think of families that do rely on ACA, how are they going to get these items that they need for their child to survive on a daily basis?

Yeah, because again, part of it is through Medicaid and part of it as well would be through these enhanced premium tax credits.

These are things that were added through the Biden administration and Congress four years back to help make these plans under the Affordable Care Act more affordable.

So between the expiration of these enhanced premium tax credits for the Affordable Care Act and the approximately $1 trillion in cuts coming to Medicaid,

I can only ask you to speak for yourself, but how concerned are you when you hear about healthcare cuts in these two different areas?

I'm incredibly concerned because how are we supposed to prop up and support our state's most vulnerable people?

Especially when they are at risk of such egregious actions just by having a disability and being a woman.

The fact that under the Affordable Care Act, birth control is free with insurance.

There's no copay.

If they let these premium tax credits expire, women will lose coverage.

They're going to lose protection.

I don't understand why they're trying to get rid of tools in our toolbox.

As caregivers, these are off-ramps that we need to have access to, and they're taking them away.

And doing so, again, to a population that was vulnerable to begin with, but as I noted at the top of the segment here, there is a depressingly large number of sexual assaults of one type or another that take place for women with developmental and intellectual disabilities.

And so you had to have this very real conversation about making sure that Nora had contraception.

Yep.

We spoke with her medical team and they approached it as I was doing it as a caregiver to limit the number of periods or to make her care easier.

And

I

said, no, the actual reason is because she has an over 80% chance of being sexually assaulted in her lifetime.

It's 50% of having it happen more than once.

That is the reason why we're putting her on contraception.

And then of course, sure, there's other, a lot of women go on contraception for other reasons.

And those are just some benefits that we will see when she's on it.

So we cannot lose this for this vulnerable population.

This is just so important that we cannot lose this.

We cannot lose the tax credits.

No, and for folks who might be saying, well, I mean, if she needs virtually 24 hour care, how is it that she's unsupervised?

I can tell you not just as a, you know, from a family standpoint, I can tell you from a journalist standpoint, again, a depressing number of news stories that have been done over the years of people who were, you know, violated by people who are in their care for a short time or, you know, an acquaintance or anything like that.

So this need for contraceptive services is

extremely real, along with all of the other medications.

And then you've got the nature of Medicaid itself, which in Wisconsin covers around one out of three births to begin with.

So Medicaid truly is a lifeline to all sorts of families around Wisconsin.

Without affordable coverage, women are going to lose their right to no cost contraception.

Premiums are going to rise.

Women are going to pay the price.

Women with disability.

I mean,

What are we going to do?

We can't institution like I'm and at the federal level as even as far as the special education I just feel like this this vulnerable group of people they are just being forgotten about

and I have to say one again startling statistic that I was aware of being married to an OBGYN and of course knowing several of them as well is that There are at times one in five

uninsured women who say they've had to stop using a birth control method because they couldn't afford it.

And again, that shouldn't be a thing, Megan.

No,

no, it shouldn't be a thing.

That is reproductive health care.

Megan Lowe is our guest.

She's a mom and caregiver to Nora.

We're talking about how cuts to health care, whether it's affordable

Affordable Care Act, insurance premiums, or Medicaid cuts are having a real impact on families and a real concern for families that maybe haven't felt the impact yet, but it sure seems like they're going to if this government shutdown continues on.

done outreach to any elected officials about this.

Clearly, it's good that you're speaking out about this, but I wonder if you've had interaction with elected officials in the past and whether they share your level of concern.

Oh, definitely.

Diane Hesselbein and Lisa Suebeck, we have been working with them for the Access to Contraception Act.

The Republicans...

They're not interested.

This act would ensure that people have access to contraception and the reproductive care that they need.

But it's not going anywhere because we know the political environment in the capitol.

So I mean, people are talking about it.

There is legislation.

It's just hard to get things going down at the capitol.

It really is and we're talking about the the state capital here.

You've had discussions I know with with Republican lawmakers and I mean do you feel feel like you've come away that they either don't Empathize or maybe don't even believe you when you talk about your concerns

I feel like when it's a face-to-face conversation for conversation They definitely empathize with us and they they seem to to support us

That's why I don't understand the disconnect between the actual voting for legislation versus just the lip service.

Well, there's another topic that we hear about with that, and that deals with cannabis and legalization of THC and things like that.

That's something that you're concerned about as well from the standpoint of pain management and things like that.

Definitely, Nora and I are part of the Wisconsin Wellness Coalition.

We're working with, we actually just worked with Senator Teston and Senator Felskowski, their medical bill that they are introducing is really great.

And I really hope that it gets traction because that also really helps women with disabilities, women and men with disabilities throughout the state.

Again, it's our most vulnerable people in the state that seem to be overlooked.

This is a safety issue.

These people exist.

They are loved.

They are in our families.

They deserve a place at the table.

And it's also, you know, frankly, a convenience issue.

Wisconsin is quickly becoming an island surrounded by states that have provided some form of legalization, at least for, you know, medical use of cannabis products.

And so there's a whole lot of Wisconsinites that face a very long drive for an assortment of services and products right now.

Well, I'm a breast cancer survivor.

I was diagnosed in 2023, and I have utilized our neighboring cannabis

for my treatment and to get better, and it was amazing.

And I testified to that.

I feel like there are a lot of issues in the state capitol that are, they have the support, the Contraception Access Act, cannabis, the legislator, the Republican legislators just not letting those bills come forward.

and there is support and it's very sad to see.

It is because again at both levels at the state legislative level and at the federal congressional level there are things that can be done at the federal level.

maybe not slash a trillion dollars from Medicaid and at the state level, maybe accept the Medicaid expansion and cover more people so that they have affordable care.

So moving forward, Meg, and then as people hear about this shutdown and they hear that it deals with healthcare issues like the enhanced premium credits for the Affordable Care Act, what is the ultimate takeaway?

What is it that you hope people

think about moving forward whenever they start hearing the news reports about the shutdown dragging on.

Well, when premiums rise, women are going to pay the price.

Congress needs to keep the premium tax credits in place to protect contraception and reproductive care.

There is no way around it.

I'm not sure what we're going to do for these people if they don't.

Megan Lowe joins us from the Merrimack area with her daughter Nora to talk to us more about

how this is all real.

This isn't just some game that they play in Washington.

It's not just some stalling that they do in Madison.

There are real people and lives affected by this.

And Megan, I appreciate so much that you were able to take time with us today and help share Nora's story and your story with us all.

Thank you again.

I hope you have a good day.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Megan, very much.

Still ahead coming up in the next hour, we will be talking to Sean O'Malley about your money and the markets.

We'll be talking to Chad Holmes from 989 WXCO in Wausau, and of course, catching up on the week's political news with Joseph Peckie.

I'm Pat Crightlow from Up North News.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Welcome back at 752 right now.

It is 30 degrees here in the Chippewa Valley.

It is 28 in Amory, one of the cold spots in the state.

32 in La Crosse, 39 in Oshkosh.

And in front of Madison Square Garden where the New York Knickerbockers are one and all on the season, it is 51 degrees.

Knickerbocker's fan, James Kelly joins us.

Mr. Kelly, did you agree with our discussion yesterday on the definition of Knickerbocker, that it's a New York descendant, essentially?

Absolutely.

Not just baggy pants that you wear?

Absolutely.

Okay.

So the so your your nicks are one and oh, the bucks are one and oh, I think I think we're ready.

We can do the Eastern Conference finals now, right?

Yeah, Nixon bucks.

I'm sure that won't get a hectic at all in the big work group chat.

No, not not even a little bit.

But you know, before we get to the stories that you're following for civic media out of our Chippewa Falls newsroom, while we're talking about the NBA, Parker Olson with the the breaking news out here and this is

This is this is huge Parker.

We were just talking that we were just talking about sports betting.

I know that's why I told you about it.

I can't believe it straight off the press from from the Associated Press Miami Heat Guard, Terry Rosier and the Portland Trailblazers head coach, uh, Chauncey Billups.

Yeah.

Uh, they have, I believe both been arrested in connection with a federal investigation into a sports betting.

That is amazing.

CNBC is reporting that Chauncey Billups, who was a former star player for the Detroit Pistons, who played 17 years in the NBA, was arrested in Portland.

Rozier was arrested in Orlando, Florida.

Rozier is a 10-year NBA veteran.

and apparently had been eyed for months over suspicious sports betting activity related to his play.

The U.S.

Attorney's Office in Brooklyn is scheduled to hold a press conference on the case a little bit later on this morning.

James, I don't know what more could fit into my question of the week about sports betting and whether it's a blessing or a curse and I'm not asking anybody for an opinion on it.

I just wanted to add a boy for picking that for a question of the week.

Yeah, good

timing,

Pat.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's all I was

looking for.

You've got a nose for the news.

Yeah, something something like that.

I'll take that.

So all right, so we'll move away from the nicks, the bucks and sports betting scandals and get into some of the stories that James is following for us.

Starting with boy, if there's if there's things that we talk about on a regular basis, it's affordable housing.

It's affordable health care.

It's just affordability overall with like, you know, inflation for groceries, and then affordable childcare and accessible childcare.

And in

County they're doing a child care survey.