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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.
It is 7.06.
Nice to have you back up north on a Monday morning, last week of October, October 27th, 2025.
Mark Rolson producing things in Madison Studio A2.
Selena Heller standing by in Eau Claire.
Dr. Kristen Lairley is AWOL.
says that she shared too much in Pittsburgh and has no voice left.
Apparently a voice is a feature that's required for radio.
So we're going to rest up and we'll hopefully visit with her again coming up on Friday morning.
Selena still has a voice.
Parker still has a voice.
I'm sure they were both yelling and cheering with their TV during the second half of the game yesterday.
You know, the one where the guy who gets up super early decided not to watch the second half.
I was demoralized by our kicker missing two field goals.
That I thought the stage was set for a not fun second half.
So I will be the first to admit I gave up too early.
Wow.
Parker, you understand where I'm coming from now.
I do.
I fully understand where you're coming from.
I just wonder how did you feel when you woke up?
Like,
I'd be really upset if I missed that.
Well, A, well rested.
Again, this is not a case where, you know, in olden days, I would have put on my slippers and shuffled out to the door and grabbed the morning newspaper, you know, and uncurled it and cursed the paperboy because it's a little bit wet from the hitting the dew on the grass.
And then realizing that the paper was printed too early and didn't even have the results of last night's game.
So I hope the guy on the radio stayed up to watch it to tell me about it.
We're not in that age anymore.
I can get up or I can take a look at my phone.
I can see all the highlights.
You know, the first thing I noticed is, oh, well, that would have been fun to watch live.
But guess what?
I have the clips right here.
Watch the clips.
It was fun.
I still get to talk about it and sound bright eyed and bushy tailed.
Perfect.
That works too.
At least as close as I get to it.
So for the few of you out there that are going Pat, get to the point because I too went to bed early.
The Packers beat the Steelers 35 to 25.
Jordan Love went 29 of 35, including a franchise record tying 20 straight completed passes at one point.
The guy I think is the key to all of this.
Titan Tucker Kraft cut seven passes for a career high, 143 yards, two touchdowns.
Christian Watson is back, four catches for 85 yards.
Josh Jacobs a three-yard scoring sprint in the first play of the fourth quarter put the Packers up for good And so the Packers are five one and one and the funny thing is everybody looks at that tie like oh, yeah, you know get tired man Might as well be a loss that tie is keeping us ahead of a lot of other teams right now
I'll, I'll take that.
So
needed to beat the Packers to beat every team in the NFL and he did not.
So
he
still has not
still, still has not.
Robin Tigerton says the Steelers jerseys looked like highway warning signs.
Yes.
He
says good morning from Tigerton.
Clear skies, light fog 31 degrees.
I had to ride yesterday or Saturday in the Clintonville area, took pictures of the remaining fall colors.
Mostly along Main Street in Clintonville and he's got some leaves to mow up today.
Speaking of temperatures, by the way, let's get those seven o'clock temperatures.
It's 39 here in Chippewa Falls.
39 in La Crosse.
Rapids is at 37.
There's some real differences in in short distances on the map here Fond du Lac is at 45.
I'm sorry Fond du Lac is at 32, but Oshkosh is 45 Eagle River is 27, but over in Manitouish waters.
It's 37 right now Hayward's at 41 degrees as as well So in talking about the fall colors, I'm gonna risk sounding like an old man complaining
And I I don't mean that I just mean we were noticing yesterday We didn't really get it wasn't our best fall color year here around here now I don't know where the where the peak is right now and maybe they are spectacular I've seen a few nice areas with a lot of rust mixed in with the yellow But we did a lot of green the yellow to brown really quick around here Selena.
Did you notice that no Claire as well?
how about no right across the street every time we pull from the driveway we have these bright red trees just right across the street and those are so pretty and at school when we pull up to school it's this yellow
Really bright really pretty tree.
So yeah, they're beautiful actually right across the street right now Maybe if you want to swing over Maybe
I'll have to do that Let's see Alicia says my maple trees are always the last to shed their leaves Always cutting the leaf pickup close.
Oh, yeah, cuz some places have the leaf pickup Parker I don't know what you have here to the do the do the buildings change color in the fall Do you guys get trees?
Do you get to see some things down there?
Yeah?
They changed the colors of the lights shining on the overture center.
Yeah.
Okay.
You've got two lovely lakes around there.
And it can be a very beautiful place to spend some time.
But you know, the fall colors just felt a they just felt a little muted up here this time around.
Yeah, not bad.
Again, not bad.
Just, you know, I just I'm looking at the leaves are looking at the trees gone.
You didn't quite live up to your full potential.
It just passed.
Yeah, maybe it went fast.
Yes.
Maybe so.
All right.
Well, so fast because then like they turn and then there's a big wind and
yes, and then they just go.
Okay.
Well, miss that show.
All right.
So Selina's got a story that you can follow over on the Up North News social media sites.
Her stories are on Facebook and TikTok and Instagram.
And one of your stories recently
is about the looming cuts that are out there to families in several different ways.
We've talked about the trillion dollars in Medicaid cuts that are coming.
Certainly nutrition assistance programs snap funding is going to be running out here in the next you know a couple of weeks that it sounds like potentially here in Wisconsin and then of course the issue that's at the heart of all of this is the way that health insurance premiums are going to skyrocket for families because of enhanced tax credits that are expiring and again they are expiring they were planned to expire but
There's a plan out there that would say, let's extend these.
You know, the same way that Republicans got to extend the corporate tax cuts under Donald Trump.
So they got a little something.
Maybe families could get a little something like continuing these enhanced tax credits to keep health insurance from getting so expensive.
And Selena, you talked to people for whom, you know, when these health insurance costs and other things start to add up, I mean, this isn't some political game.
It's really going to hurt them.
Yeah, it's real families and it's the reality for so many people across Wisconsin when these subsidies run out at the end of the year.
And so this is a retired artist.
She's from La Crosse, Kate Bausch.
And she got...
emotional because this is her reality this is for her and her husband her husband is a retired teacher of 38 years and so they planned their retirements on using these subsidies just for for a short time but uh that's what they were relying on
and
it's uh
all right let's give a listen to uh Selena's story with Kate Bosch
the uncertainty I can't tell you unbearable it's been to not
know
if we're gonna have health care next year or what it's gonna cost.
In La Crosse, Kate Bausch and her husband are retired but two years shy of qualifying for Medicare.
So using the Affordable Care Act marketplace for their health care is a must for them.
It's not free.
We pay $476.
I think some people think like if you're on the ACA that it's free and it's not.
I mean we still pay and we're happy to pay.
Their monthly premium is set to skyrocket, though, as Republicans in DC appear willing to let the tax credits that make ACA coverage more affordable expire.
Kate says the uncertainty of what will happen with these subsidies is enough to put anyone on edge.
We started checking around because if the credits were going to expire, we needed to be covered and we like to be prepared.
So we were quoted upwards of $2,400 a month through a retirement for the state retirement workers.
And we can't afford $2,400 a month.
If these credits expire, I'm not sure what we will do.
Unless Republicans join Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin and her Democratic colleagues in supporting an extension, the tax credits will expire at the end of the year.
And that means out-of-pocket premiums for ACA marketplace enrollees could go up 75% according to the research group Kaiser Family Foundation.
This tax break...
called the Enhanced Premium Tax Credit, saves more than 230,000 Wisconsinites, an average of $500 every single month.
We both have to be on
medicine.
It's not just doctor visits and that kind of thing.
I have asthma and my husband does too.
Our inhalers are $500 a month.
We're just not sure what we'll do.
Senator Baldwin says if tax credits for the wealthy and corporations can be included in the budget, there's certainly legroom for extending tax credits for conscientious families.
We're looking at, obviously, no Christmas presents that we'll be shopping for this year or next year.
Probably we're hoping to take some trips just around the state.
We live pretty simply.
I'm really sorry I didn't expect a cry, but it's real.
And I guess that's the point, Selena.
We keep trying to make.
This is real.
This is what people were hoping would be extended, because again, in the 10 plus years that the Affordable Care Act has been around, it has worked compared to the old system, but has always needed to be modified and improved upon.
And by not
having these, you know, premium tax credits renewed, you're taking a step backward to those old days and you and I both covered so many stories about people who, you know, paid their premiums and the health insurance company just denied them.
So, I mean, right now the story is about premiums going up, but what it also means is people either go without insurance or insurance companies are just saying, nope, we're not going to cover you anymore.
right and then okay they then they don't get insurance and then there's more problems and then they don't have the health care they need and i was just in so i'll have this coming up too i was with a farmer um in pierce county and he said you know it'll be like if i bleed then i'll go to the doctor but otherwise probably not if i don't have health insurance so we were we were in his combine chatting at that time as he was combining soybeans and as of course you know there's so many
issues for farmers right now.
So we're going to hear from him coming up another time too.
So talking not only about about health insurance, but also about the soybeans that he's harvesting right there with you, and whether there's going to be a market for them or place to store them or anything like that.
Right.
He said, you know, we're sitting here in my combine, we're combining this field and
I'm just I'm losing money.
This is what I work for all all year.
And
it's I lost money, you know, it's it's it's a hard time.
And then on top of that, for any that that we're, you know, raising cattle as well, and expecting, you know, something to go to the American beef market, you now have Argentine beef that's coming in there.
There's just something all throughout rural Wisconsin for people to look at and say, this is this is
harder than we were expecting to be at this point.
And like you said, you're talking to somebody who they're combining two or three of these issues all into one.
These are not times.
Right.
And he said, you know, if we get a bailout, the bailout is just going to be
I just have to pay off my fertilizer and it's for those companies.
It doesn't do anything to help me.
I'm so far behind it really doesn't do anything.
No, no, it goes right to those companies where fertilizer costs have been jacked up again because of Trump's trade war with Canada.
For all these stories that Selena Heller works on, check out our social media sites, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, search for Upnorth News, WI and look for her stories there.
Selena, thank you very much for the story.
Happy Halloween week.
We'll talk to you later.
All right, see
you.
Okay, but again, look for Selena on social media there and coming up later this week another wrinkle in health insurance and that's all the folks who have to choose new Medicare Advantage plans because there might have been changes along the way with their current plan.
We will talk to Ingrid Cunninger, the Wisconsin Senior Medicare Patrol program director about that coming up Thursday.
You're going to want to listen if you fit into that category of needing a new Medicare Advantage plan from the heart of America.
America's Up North, live from Lake Wissota.
Thanks for making this the place to spend part of your Monday mornings.
I'm Pat Rightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
Heck now at 722 on this Monday pack.
Quite low up here in Chippewa Falls.
Parker Olson producing things down in Madison and of course we've discussed already the Packers beating the Pittsburgh Steelers last night and the Badger football team, they did not win their game over the weekend.
But hey, the scores are getting closer every time.
I mean, first it was what, 37-nothing?
Then it was 34, nothing, right?
And this time to lose to the number 16 in the country, Oregon, by 21 to seven.
Pretty good.
Moral victory.
Yeah.
Because it also meant that the Badgers would not go scoreless in three straight games, which would have been a problem.
And somebody actually, somebody calculated all the time on that.
Let's see, did we see, what did it come down to?
Roger.
Oh yeah,
here we go.
182 minutes and 47 seconds.
Thank you, Roger, for tracking the Badger football team scoring drought.
So lovely.
Packers now two and six on the season, oh and five in the Big Ten.
Luke Fickle, though, loved getting the scoring drought out of the way.
His quote was
Everything matters.
That's what I say to the guys in there.
Everything matters.
The last two plays of the game, they matter.
Scoring points, it matters.
You're not going to win football games if you score seven points, probably.
But you've got to score seven before you can score 10.
And you've got to score 10 before you can score 14.
I can't argue with that.
I mean, I don't know what math classes they have down there in Madison, but I cannot argue with that.
And he says, at some point in time, we've got to figure out how to string these things together and get better.
Yes, you do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's really
disappointing because they really have, the Badgers really have had chances at beating Oregon two years in a row now.
They just
cannot do it.
Not quite, can't quite seal the deal.
So they will host Washington at Camp Randall this coming Saturday, but I don't believe that they have assigned a start time yet.
to that, which, again, we live we live in that flex schedule era where, you know, your tickets used to get printed with times on there.
Well, first off, they don't print tickets anymore.
And the times are relevant.
You'll go when we say that you go.
So we'll watch for a kickoff time on the Badgers taking on Washington next Saturday.
In the meantime, the Group Opportunity Wisconsin is starting a new don't leave Wisconsinites out in the cold coat drive in support of local business.
in partnership with local businesses.
saying that as families struggle with the rising costs from tariffs and Republican-backed cuts to energy assistance and healthcare and SNAP, organizers are collecting coats at various locations across the state.
From Friday through Christmas, anyone who brings in a gently used coat to participating locations will receive a voucher that can be redeemed at some of the participating businesses.
That includes, you know, Claire,
Eau Claire Outdoors on Barstow Street.
In Kenosha, it would be public brewing company.
And in Mount Pleasant, Latakisa Restaurant is taking part in it.
And again, this is all through Opportunity Wisconsin.
You can learn more at OpportunityWisconsin.org.
In our Sunday morning newsletter through Up North News, sign up at UpNorthNewsWI.com, we have our regular question of the week.
I really had no idea how the question was going to go that we put up yesterday morning.
And I have been somewhat surprised to see that we might end up with, I don't know that we've ever had a true 50-50 question yet, but we're really close in the responses so far.
And it deals with whether there should be a new nuclear power plant built in the Kauani area.
There had been one there that has sent been decommissioned, but there's interest in bringing a nuclear power plant, a new one back to Wisconsin, generating electricity using nuclear power, which does not generate fossil fuels directly, so does not contribute to harming the climate directly.
And for plenty of people,
That is a real positive.
And for plenty of other people who see the potential for things to go sideways with nuclear power because of accidents of one type or another, this is just a no-go.
It's a non-starter for them.
So the way we asked it is, you know, do you think that if done under strict safeguards, you would support a new nuclear power plant in Wisconsin or no, no safeguard is worth the risk of another three mile island or Fukushima or Chernobyl, not to mention another new batch of nuclear waste.
And like I said, there's been quite a mix of answers here.
I don't, I really don't think it breaks down by party.
In this case, it really does come down to personal preferences and feelings about nuclear power.
Mary here, for example, says, A, yes.
We hopefully learn from each disaster what to do and how to safeguard future use.
Another one says from Rick, says no to this project.
Safety issues aside, over the decades, nuclear has proven to be too expensive to build and too expensive to operate.
And so there's one who says,
Another says, yes, as long as there are appropriate safety measures in place.
Another from Linda here says, no, no nuclear plants, please solar and wind are safer and more reliable.
You know, to which others would say, well, yeah, you need solar and wind and nuclear.
You need a whole range of energy options moving into the future.
So again, the folks who get our Sunday morning newsletter get the first crack at the answers and sending in their responses Let's see from Tony up on Ashland and YouTube in Northwest Ohio There is a nuclear plant.
I do remember at least one time there was a crack somewhere that scared people Lots of places have iodine tablets as a precaution too.
Yeah, these are all things that people have to think about and decide whether to
make nuclear energy as part of the mix.
So again, head over to upnorthnewswi.com and sign up there for our newsletter.
And you can respond to our question of the week.
Of course, you can also put something like Tony just did in the comment section of YouTube or Facebook, or you can even email us the old fashioned way radio at upnorthnewswi.com or use the civic media app.
to text us or call into the show.
We've got a guest coming up, Lucy Rip from a Better Wisconsin Together, who's going to talk about candidates who are opposed to women's basic health care rights, already announcing to be on the ballot for 2026.
And again, your feedback, if you'd like to add it by phone, by text, by comment, all coming up.
I'm Pat Rightlow from Up North News, and this is The Civic News.
The progressive group of Better Wisconsin Together is all about research and stories from real people and empowerment and their latest research
It includes the glaring omissions in the attendance record of one member of the Wisconsin State Assembly.
We recently talked to communications director Lucy Rip about that.
First, we spent some time talking about the first wave of candidates for 2026.
Now, whether it's public polling or election results, it is clear that most people in Wisconsin believe that women should have the right to make their own decisions about their bodies.
and politicians should stop trying to put themselves into exam rooms alongside women and their doctors.
And yet, there are plenty of conservatives who are already running with a clear record that is out of the mainstream of Wisconsin values on that subject, whether it's for state attorney general, state supreme court, or for governor.
And we cover all three races when I talked to Lucy Rip first about gubernatorial candidate and GOP congressman, Tom Tiffany.
Yeah, he very much seemed that he knows that the way he has voted on abortion in the past and endorsements he's gotten and things like that go directly against what the majority of Wisconsin's
Wisconsinites believe, which is that we want safe and legal abortion access across the state.
We don't believe that politicians should be anywhere near that decision.
And he has a really long record of going against that.
And so it was very clear that he wanted to hide that.
Yeah, and so when he was kind of conveniently removed that information from a personal website that got noticed by the the media and by you folks as well Then there's the recent announcement here that Eric Tony is getting into the race for Attorney General He lost to Josh call last time around and he has announced another run and It appears that his positions really haven't changed that much since the last time he ran
No, it doesn't appear that they have.
And the last time he ran, as we've said on our website, Wisconsinites overwhelmingly rejected him.
I mean, he is another one of those Republicans who just has very extreme...
Views on abortion that don't align with how Wisconsinites feel I mean in previous elections.
He's gotten endorsements from some of the most radical anti-abortion groups in Wisconsin He indicated last time around that he ran that he would try to impose an almost total abortion ban and an abortion ban that also threatens doctors and nurses with criminal penalties for providing that care and so
He's so extreme about putting politicians like himself in charge of these decisions that he's also advocated for being able to exceed his authority as a local district attorney and cross county lines to impose his beliefs on people who didn't even elect him.
Interestingly, he also in his announcement focused on some of the usual boogeyman.
There was, of course, you know, undocumented immigrants.
There was, you know, problems in Milwaukee.
It's always convenient to, you know, blame Milwaukee there.
And the thing that we've been watching here up north is that here he is the named special prosecutor in the case of Wausau Mayor Doug Denney, removing an absentee ballot dropbox, which seemed rather curious, given that that's this is a chiropractor who him
himself has said he believed absentee ballot drop boxes should be illegal and he wanted the state Supreme Court to outlaw them.
So I guess we already know where he stands on voting convenience if he's going to run for attorney general again.
Yeah, it's very clear he's not only trying to, you know, police what happens in our exam rooms, but he's also trying to take away ways of voting for
People of Wisconsin.
Yeah, you're also following the appeals court judge Maria Lazar who is Hoping to run for state supreme court next year would quite likely face fellow appeals court judge and former legislator Chris Taylor But Maria Lazar again as we've said based on her past endorsements and some of her statements It's also quite clear where she stands on women's reproductive health care rights
She was caught saying on camera that she thinks the Supreme Court's decision that overturned Robi Wade was, quote, very wise.
And she also indicated that when the Wisconsin Supreme Court earlier this year struck down in 1800s law that Republicans were trying to use as an abortion ban, she said she doesn't know that she would have agreed with them on that.
So she's making it very clear early on that she is anti-abortion rights in Wisconsin.
you know we've been talking a lot about whether Republicans in in Madison or Washington DC want to show up for work now whether they have shown up for work whether whether they want to and it's been tough enough for them just given the current conditions but it seems to have been even more of a problem for one particular Wisconsin legislator and you happen to notice
had a better Wisconsin together, a lot of absences from State Representative Shannon Zimmerman from over in the River Falls, Western Wisconsin area.
As you were looking at the record, what is it that you felt like his constituents need to know?
Yeah, so with Representative Shannon Zimmerman, as you said, he represents Assembly District 30, which includes areas like River Falls and Hudson and more.
And we noticed that on a lot of the floor session days this year,
He was just completely absent.
He wasn't there.
And so we counted it up and we noticed that he has been absent from nearly half of all of the assembly's floor sessions this year.
I think that includes March 18th, March 20th, June 18th, September 11th.
And so I think what the people in his district need to know is that they elected him to do a job, right?
And that job is to represent them in our state legislature and make sure that
their voices are heard on the issues that are going to impact their lives on the issues that matter to them.
And right now, it seems like he's not doing that.
Well, certainly not giving it his full attention.
And let's be clear, because a lot of people don't know
the employment status of legislators.
They are paid a full time salary, which is which is not, you know, Wisconsin is now in the minority of states that pay a full time salary and expect that you are working throughout the course of the year as a state legislator.
They may have other jobs, but it's pretty clear when you run for office that this is supposed to be a full time gig, right?
Right.
Yes.
And you know, you know, probably Pat that sometimes you just can't be there seven days a week.
You miss a day or two here or there for family emergency, childcare, sick day, whatever it may be.
But I think what's concerning here is just the the rate at which he isn't showing up.
Well, because he also has other, you know, alternatives.
I mean,
There has been discussion before about, you know, he's got a Florida vacation rental business that might be keeping him
busy.
Yeah and you know even I believe this was back in 2017 he didn't even show up to vote on the state budget which is one of the most important pieces of legislation that gets passed in Wisconsin and when you look at why wasn't he there it's because he was in an Amsterdam airport so you know the biggest thing the legislature does and he wasn't there to vote on it because he was in Europe.
And again, that is, like you said, that's something that can happen here and there.
It happens to people.
It's just that there've been so many of these that, you know, for somebody who for, you know, his first few years in office, it was questionable whether he even lived in the district or just outside of the district.
It brings some extra attention to a district and constituents who want to know that.
you know, he's there for them or that he isn't.
And there were some pretty key votes that he missed on those dates in March and June and September that you all looked up.
What are some of the things that he missed votes on some bills that really address the needs that face Wisconsinites?
Yeah, so notably on some of the days that he didn't bother to show up, he avoided voting on a lot of different bills, I think
We tallied it up and it was around 85.
But some of them that he avoided voting on by not showing up were bills that would have given wage increases to UW System employees.
And he has at least one UW System school in his district.
He avoided voting on a bill that would have helped build a mental health facility in the Chippewa Valley.
And so he also left them without a voice on that one either.
So A Better Wisconsin Together is watching all of these things.
You can check out their website and the whole team over there, including Lucy Rip, following all kinds of issues and candidates.
Lucy, we really appreciate the perspective you bring to this, and thanks for joining us for a few minutes today.
Yeah, thanks for having us, Pat.
Yeah, again, A Better Wisconsin Together, they do research by and large.
That's where they got their start.
In fair disclosure, I served for a brief time on the board of directors many years ago from a better Wisconsin together when they engaged in all kinds of research about what certain bills would do, or in this case, who did or didn't vote on bills or the things that they've said, sometimes the things they've said when they think nobody is listening.
But they've also kind of expanded now into capturing the stories of folks around Wisconsin and the way that
you know, they're they're impacted by the things that politicians do, especially politicians who may not be acting in line with, you know, mainstream Wisconsin values.
So over at a better wisconsin.org, you can scroll down a bit and get to their storytellers and video archive.
And you might even see some familiar faces, or you might hear some stories that you feel are worth sharing in your own social media feeds.
Some of the posts that you may see over at the a better Wisconsin together website.
It's just about 746 right now.
And I wanted to read a post from somebody about some of these cuts that are happening to SNAP benefits and others.
And this particular post was written by somebody named Stacey Patton, a journalist and writer, a college professor, teaches journalism at Howard University in Washington, DC.
and has been doing a lot more writing on social media lately because she's been one of those folks who were targeted by the far right for the way that she reacted to the murder of conservative provocateur Charlie Kirk.
And again, you don't have to like what people say about things and you can criticize what they say about things, but
those things have, shall we say, crossed the line in many cases where people have lost their jobs or they have faced threats.
And frankly, Stacey Patton is one of those who has been getting weeks of abuse, primarily by a bunch of white guys filling her email inbox with racial slurs and things like that.
And Howard University has offered her extra security as well.
But
she's not really having any of it.
She's basically punching back.
And one of her posts caught my eye over the weekend about the looming cuts to snap benefits.
And so I just wanted to read part of that from again, from Stacy Patton and Howard University, where she writes the following, I'm sick of seeing comments saying that people on snap should quote, just get a job.
The reports I see show that over half of working age, non-disabled adults on SNAP, were working in a given month.
And about 74% worked in the year before or after that month.
And a good number of them are college students juggling classes and rent and part-time jobs while trying to keep food on the table.
This country doesn't have a laziness problem.
It has a wage problem, a greed problem, a you shouldn't have to starve to prove your worth problem.
People who make the get a job comment are insecure.
They need to believe poverty is a moral failure because the alternative is that they'd have to reckon with the fact that this particular system of the economy is rigged and that their comfort is built on exploitation.
That terrifies them, so they invent a hierarchy where they're the hardworking and everyone else is lazy even if the data proves them wrong.
They're not really defending the work ethic, they're defending a fantasy where their own mediocrity still feels well earned and many of these hateful folks crying get a job are themselves.
Often just one layoff, one illness, one bad month away from the same line at the social services office.
And I've seen plenty of that myself as well.
We will be talking to somebody who started their own small business after a journey from Mexico to Wisconsin in our next hour.
I'm Pat Crightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
All right, welcome back.
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If it's clean, we might put it on the radio.
But away again, so many ways to get in touch with the program and maybe
just maybe give your take on something like, you know, the Packers beating the Steelers last night, even if it's to rub in that the host managed to go to bed earlier.
Just as I put Parker on camera, of course, here on social media, big yawn that he's letting out.
That was a
real yawn.
That was not for the bit.
That was a real yawn.
It was a very real yawn.
It was, it was great timing.
It's like the way the waiter comes up just when you got a mouthful of food and goes, how's everything?
And so there there was the big yawn from somebody that stayed up.
But again, it looked good.
And, you know, in terms of a of a recap, again, there's many moments you can point to with Aaron Rodgers, you know, taking him on for the first time, you know, on the opposing team.
I am just happy to see that Christian Watson is back and did not right away, you know, blow a tire and, you know, have this leg fall off or anything like that.
I thought that was a win.
I think that they're going to
tight end Tucker craft more, which I thought was going to be a real key to this.
I was pretty surprised how very little yardage Josh Jacobs gained.
I think what was it only like three 33 yards total, but one of them included a three yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter.
So I mean, that was, that was nice.
But he was fine.
He was um,
I don't know if he just, his vision wasn't quite there last night or what, but it felt like, um, when Emmanuel Wilson was getting the ball, he was just flying through the line.
Um, there just might have been better blocks for him.
I'm not harm sure, but yeah, Josh Jacobs kind of struggled a little bit.
Um, which I think can happen at this point in the year when you're running back, like those guys get banged up, Tucker craft, especially, I think tight, I mean tight ends, especially can
get banged up.
I'd like to know more about Jacob's health because he's the one who remember a week ago or so was, was particularly under the weather and yet played out of his mind and talked about how, you know, his, his best game prior to that was a time when he was really sick.
So is the problem that he's healthy now or, or has he, has he finally, you know, as gravity worked and it's like now when you're sick, you actually don't play at your best.
However, it was, again, we had plenty of other weapons this time around, not the least of which is Jordan Love, who, you know, you would not have been surprised if he'd gotten a little case of the yips or something, you know, taken on Aaron Rodgers directly for the first time.
But no, the guy had a monster game, 29 of 35.
20 straight completed passes in a row at one point, which encourages me because I mean, I'm not going to lie.
There've been a few times during the season where I've seen love, you know, just throw enough times off target.
Yeah.
And I'm starting to wonder, you know, is this going to click?
Clearly, the answer is yes.
Things are clicking with him and the receivers.
Yes.
Every now and then he'll do something that kind of scares it a little bit.
He's cemented himself, I think, as a top probably.
Seven quarterback in the league.
Um, if not higher, frankly, he's very good.
Um, and his seat or his floor does not seem to be very low.
Um, his like autopilot mode of just like not doing anything special is pretty fine.
And that's kind of what you want in a quarterback.
That's part of why I felt good turning the TV off at halftime because the first half was just really.
boring and just like the two or three games prior to that.
And I thought, well, that's our theme this year is we, we might grind out a win, but it's not going to be particularly sexy.
Well, as it turns out, this whole bunch of touchdowns in the second half that I missed that would have made it very exciting to watch.
But that's okay.
You know, again, 454 yards total offense.
They just waited, you know, till
till some of us, you know, cashed out to say, okay, let's, let's pour it on.
And in part because they realized that their kicker there, Mr. McManus, didn't quite have it on those first two field goal attempts.
Again, stressing attempts, not
completion.
I only blame him for one.
The first one I distance, I don't care.
He probably wasn't going to be able to kick that far anyway coming off an injury.
But yeah, the second one.
I guess, but I mean the the Steelers kicker had just drilled one from 56 And so you know the next series he's he's trying to kick one from 57 Yeah, and of course it falls just short and you're like oh just that that one more yard Which like he says not on him the offense should have advanced the ball a little bit more But that that is the assignment and we just had a substitute kicker who drilled one from what was the record 61?
I thought it was 63.
It might have been.
It could have been 63.
So we know it can be done.
It just didn't get done for Mr. McManus as he continues to recover.
Now the Packers are going to do something next weekend that is quite unusual.
It used to be a feature, a regular feature of Packer games, but this coming Sunday will be something you don't normally see.
The game is on Sunday at noon.
What?
I know it's like we're mortals, you know?
No prime time game, no national game at 325, not Sunday night, not Thursday night, just a plain old noon Sunday football game.
That makes me happy.
I hope people remember what to do when it just happens when normal football games happen.
And that one I will watch and I will stay up for, I think.
So
unless you have to go out to lunch or dinner early,
I was going to say, there could, there, there could be that, uh, that, that is always a problem with having family that includes, you know, another state.
I mean, a couple of times this season already, my family's wanted to do something.
I was in the twin cities this past weekend and they're like, Oh, you want to hang around for this?
Like, no, we have a football team that wins.
You know, you got to understand that.
So, and they mean, meanwhile they are like,
bent over in their Vikings jerseys, you know, just hunched over.
And somebody came up with a term for that when they're hunched over after being defeated yet again.
Yeah, school, because they're always chanting Skoll.
So Skoll leosis is that look for Vikings fans.
I like it was a funny cartoon.
We will be talking a lot more in the eight o'clock hour starting with our Madison friends, John and Gordy in the big Madison studio.
not just little A2 where Parker is.
We're going to A1 right after the news on the civic media radio network.
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