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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Kratlow powered by Up North News.
Now, from our Lake WSOTA studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Kratlow.
Well, hey there, Wisconsin.
Good morning.
It is a Tuesday morning, October 28th, 2025, and it's another beautiful morning to have you here up north, live from Lake WSOTA.
From wherever you're listening across the Civic Media Radio Network, catching us on YouTube, Facebook, podcast, website, Tin Can.
with a string.
I've always wondered why that was hanging here.
Anyway, we're glad that you got your day started right here.
And I hope your day is starting out.
Well, I clearly I concern some people because the show starts on the radio at 606.
We start the live stream social media, Facebook, YouTube at six o'clock, but sometimes I'm a little late getting it started.
And Tony right away gets up there on YouTube from up in national and says where's Pat, then Alicia jumps in the comments sections and like, wait, Pat's missing.
Tony responds.
He wasn't here at exactly six o'clock saying I need my pre show preview precisely at 6am Tony, I'm sorry, I have an excuse.
I got a question for you.
You ever start your day with something that could just send your day into a tailspin and you have to catch yourself and go, nope, nope, that's not what's going to happen here.
Well, that happened twice already this morning.
So let me bring in my favorite non-coffee drinker, Parker Olson, who's producing this Shindig down in Madison Studio A2.
Parker, you have your water?
I
Yes, Parker's Parker's a little under the weather here.
He's pleased.
He's he's plain wounded and we appreciate that You know, he's got his white water hoodie on because that's how he does it's like he remembers, you know in white water They teach you never give up you get on that field no matter what and he is on the field of battle today and and we appreciate it
as far as in Alicia says, Tony gave me a heart attack and Tony's like, Well, I have three kids.
So I never start my day without spiraling into something.
Anyway, here's the thing that spiraled.
Oh, boy.
Get up, you know, alarm goes off, you know, I there's a four on the alarm clock, like for something.
Okay, stumble out to the kitchen.
I want to pour myself a cup of ambition, but I can't because as I go to pull the coffee pot out of the dishwasher, it
I mean, I've pulled it out of that dishwasher 1000 times.
I think literally, yes, more than 1000 times when I think of how long we've had that dishwasher and believe it.
And the one time it hits as I lift it up, it hits the bottom of the counter.
Of course, we've got these like granite countertops or whatever.
So you hear that sickening, it doesn't shatter, but you know, it cracked, you just know, you know that sound.
And you pull it out.
Yep.
And it's got a big old chip in it, a little chip that's missing, and you're not going to get coffee.
But then I remembered, I have a dual coffee maker.
It's got the pot on the one side, and it's got the single serving on the other where you can put in the little pods.
Oh, sure.
And
also, because I mean, I am, you know, I might be Earth's best friend, as an environmentalist, I don't use the pods, I have a little cup and you, you put a scoop of coffee in there, and you put it with water and all that.
But here's the thing, it's a very touchy basket.
You can put in, you know, if you put in half a scoop, you'll be okay if you put a little more than half a scoop of coffee and you're okay.
Somehow that coffee machine knows the number of granules of coffee that you put in.
Yeah, because you think you've got it.
But if it's one granule too much as I'm getting the rest of breakfast ready, you suddenly hear the water, you know, couldn't get through the coffee and it is spilling out the other side and onto the floor.
So I'm a two time coffee loser today already.
But that's a tough morning.
It was but but again,
You now catch yourself and you go, wait, wait, wait, wait.
I can't go back to bed.
Parker wants to go back to bed.
He's not feeling well.
He can't go back to bed.
I can't go back to bed.
happen?
Yeah, we have worked.
Well, clearly what would happen is Tony
and Alicia would
burn
the
ground.
I know you've got the.
the comment sections filling up already without how their morning routine unfolds.
So I'm glad we could be here for it.
We just wanted to pull the curtain back a little bit and let you know that, you know, even when we're not at our best, and here's the thing, we're not at our very, very best, even though we did not stay up to watch an 18 inning baseball game.
My God.
Oh, how can you know that the temptation would be so great.
know, you
games last night.
Oh, I, I, I only, I saw maybe an inning or two and, uh, oh, yeah.
Shohei Otani hit a home run.
Okay.
Yeah, he's he's still doing things.
And it is just I guess it was Wow, I didn't catch exactly what time I'm guessing from the play by play guy on the replay said just before midnight, which would have been just before 2am here.
man, this is 609 pitches were thrown over six hours
and
39 minutes.
44 players in the game, including 19 pitchers.
All of that for Freddie Freeman to hit a home run in the bottom of the 18th, a walk off home run in game two of the double header is essentially what it was.
And the Dodgers take a two games to one lead.
And
Shohei Otani, Homer twice.
He doubled twice.
And by the way, he's going to be the starting pitcher in like 12 hours
They have to because they kind of be back up to do this all over again.
Uh, now, uh, now you had Max Scherzer.
who was pitching for Toronto, he's going to be retiring.
He's been around forever.
He is an
Yes.
Well, I don't know if it was formal for it.
It's like everything but formal, you know, that that he's going to be done.
No, it's Clayton Kershaw, who has said he's retiring.
Yeah.
And I guess he made an appearance in the game.
So he had these two, you know, Hall of Famers who are in the game as well.
But I'm sure glad I didn't stand for it.
That's all I get to say about that.
I clearly had it, although if I had, I'd have more of an excuse for, you know, breaking the coffee pod and trying to break the coffee maker, but I don't.
So
on.
Yeah.
Instead of sleep deprivation.
no, that was, that was just, again, I've pulled that coffee pod out a million times.
Don't you
it?
Don't you
How
up?
Look in your cupboard.
I mean, certainly for us, because I mean, we've been together for 40 years here.
And there's so many things that are no longer a set.
There's like, Oh, there's two glasses left from that set.
Sure.
One glass left from that set, one, you know, one or two bowls left from that set.
And so I mean, it happens over time, it's not an everyday occurrence, but we all break things.
But every time it happens at that moment, you think it's the dumbest thing you've ever done.
You know, and then you realize, no, no, I'm actually, I'm actually capable of much dumber.
Uh, just didn't happen this time around.
So anyway, uh, I did eventually get the coffee maker figured out on the single side.
So I do, I am, I am partially, but belatedly caffeinated.
So, uh, this another, this is a different cup.
Parker's looking at the monitor.
I have a couple of different cups with photos of the grandkids.
And you don't want me to be offended by that.
This is true.
You are sick.
I'm going to turn your camera off over here.
You go back over there.
I'm going to tell people.
up today.
First, an invitation to contact us 85575 civic 8557524842.
The calls are rare in the early morning because Tony puts up on YouTube.
That's the day Parker was replaced.
No, no, no, no, no.
And Alicia putting every single bowl in my house is chipped in one way or another.
By the way, these folks and you all welcome to call 85575 civic 8557524842.
People go, Pat, you don't have you don't have a lot of college on here.
What's the deal?
Do you know what happens?
And I don't know if a lot of other hosts talk about this or not.
But it seems like I'll prattle on for a while and then somebody will go, Okay, I got to talk to him about that.
And invariably when they call, there's like...
eight seconds left before the commercial break or, you know, less than two minutes.
And I, there are other hosts who are really good about putting a call up and going, you know, caller, you got, you got 60 seconds go.
And it's always that awkward thing when it runs right into a commercial and you got to cut them off.
So I'm going to try to do a better job of saying at the start of certain segments, if we don't have a guest or other things is to say, Hey, the phones are open.
It's the start of the segment, call on in because we would love to hear from you.
We would also love to get your text messages and your voice notes.
using the Civic Media app.
Again, just download the app wherever you are and call or text or voice note from there.
Alicia says, it's loud where I'm at.
And that's why we have the comment sections.
And we love those.
We love it all.
We just want to make sure you know the phones are available to reach us as well as things on the app coming up today.
We're gonna be talking in just a little over five minutes here about the government shutdown and its impact on food assistance and And and that's the question why we've we've never had this issue before with government shutdowns But apparently it it has to be that way so we'll we'll get into that and then in our seven o'clock hour We're gonna be talking about the shutdown as it relates to the
National Park System, and that would include the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.
And we have that here up north, and we have a guest from Friends of the Apostle Islands, Geoff Renneke, who's going to talk about the impact of the government shutdown that way.
In our eight o'clock hour, more about the shutdown as we talk to Courier Newsroom.
correspondent, Cam Stevenson, live from Capitol Hill to learn the latest on what is or is not going to be happening there.
And then we're going to be talking to Ruth Conniff from the Wisconsin Examiner.
And Ruth has a great column that's in the examiner and look forward at WisconsinExaminer.com about the controversy at the Department of Public Instruction, about how allegations of teacher misconduct are handled.
And those are very real concerns.
But Ruth Conniff also does a good job of putting things into perspective that in outlining what exactly is the process right now and how it may not be as monstrous as certain politicians are making it out to be because they're the same politicians who have declared war on the Department of Public Instruction.
By starving it of the funds it would need for staffing to look into things like this and oh by the way a couple of those Republicans Happen to be the ones protecting a president who wants to keep the Epstein files sealed up.
So maybe there's a little political drama Maybe there's a little hypocrisy that's going on and Ruth Conniff will put that all in balance for us We will hear from our friend James Kelly
He's at the Civic Media Newsroom here in the Chippewa Valley to talk about some of the stories that folks all over the state might want to know he's following in western and northern Wisconsin.
Dan Hagen will join us from NewsWatch 12, WJFW to tell us what he's covering up in the Northwoods as well.
Temperatures across the state range from the cold spot is up there in Ashland where Tony is at 27 degrees.
The warm spot is down in Racine where it is 50 degrees.
It is 39 degrees here in the Chippewa Valley.
Again, we'll talk about the government shutdown as it relates to
the shortages of food that are about to take place, including in food banks, because it turns out that for months, the Trump administration has canceled deliveries of food to food banks, so they're not equipped to help out in the coming crisis.
From the heart of America's up north, live from Lake Wissota, thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.
I'm Pat Kraitlo, 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.
Tomorrow morning on the program, we will be joined by Ellie Bordeaux of Up North News.
She puts together our daily newsletter.
You can sign up for it over at upnorthnewswi.com and click subscribe up in the banner at the top of the homepage to get what she is putting together and out early every morning and Ellie will join us tomorrow, just after the news at seven.
to talk a bit about things that she has put in the newsletter and things that will not be in future newsletters as well.
We'd love to have you along as a subscriber.
Same goes for our weekend newsletter Sunday mornings with Pat Critewell and on there we took a look at the week in politics and include a question of the week and as I am continuing to discover people are very divided.
on the topic of a nuclear power plant, whether there should be a new one built in Wisconsin.
There are plenty of people very passionate that we should not.
There are plenty of people who understand that there are risks, but with safeguards, we would have nuclear power that is not fossil fuel based and would not damage the climate.
So where do you come down on that?
You can send us a note through all the normal ways here, through the comment sections, through the Civic Media app.
But if you want to be able to answer first to get signed up for that newsletter, head to upnorthnewswi.com.
Click subscribe up in the banner on top of the homepage.
All right, well, with the government shutdown, there's something happening that has not really happened before.
in a government shutdown that looks to be happening here shortly.
And that is snap running out of money, nutritional benefits for lower income families.
In past government shutdowns, there was agreement that look, we're debating other things about funding the government, but hungry families shouldn't go hungry, kids shouldn't go hungry.
Those benefits continued.
The only time it was ever in jeopardy was during the shutdown that happened during the first Trump term.
But again at the last moment it was it was saved this time around the Trump administration is hell bent on making sure that you know kids in lower-income families don't get enough food to eat and Refusing to budge even though there is additional money available.
There are supplemental funds The USDA could be using to apply towards snap benefits, but they choose not to Because the cruelty is the point of this the same goes for the
but the spike that's coming in health insurance premiums as a result of the government shutdown.
The government shutdown is happening because premium tax credits for the Affordable Care Act, the things that make health insurance more affordable,
in the Affordable Care Act marketplace are expiring.
This is extra help that was put in during the pandemic and it made a real difference to families.
It continues to make a real difference.
It's the kind of thing that frankly should have happened a lot earlier pre-pandemic to make health care more attainable, more affordable for families.
But
politics being what it is, you get the best deal that you can get.
And four years ago, there was this agreement in Congress, all right, we're going to have these enhanced premium tax credits, things that make these policies more affordable.
And we'll do it for four years, that seems to be the best that we can do to get past Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema and, you know, anybody else.
So there they are.
And they're getting set to expire.
And now you've got people, Derrick Van Orden most recently saying, it was the Democrats that set it up to expire.
This is all they're doing.
Technically true.
But again, rewind the clock.
Let's go back.
2017, the first Trump administration and the massive corporate tax breaks, the massive tax breaks geared toward the very wealthy that were set to expire back in 2017.
They set it for eight years.
They're going to expire at the end of this year.
What did the Trump administration want?
They wanted those tax cuts to continue.
Some of them to be made permanent.
And that's what they got.
So it's not like they have to go away because you reached the end of a particular cycle.
If it's something that's worth fighting for, Republicans clearly thought it was worth fighting for the very rich.
And that's what they got done.
And now it's Democrats who are fighting for what they believe in, which is affordable healthcare.
Whose side would you rather be on in that debate, by the way?
The billionaires getting the extra tax cuts along with the corporations, or the families who, like you, could be one job loss away, or one cancer diagnosis, or one car crash away from medical bankruptcy.
That's what Democrats are fighting for, and Republicans are so hell-bent on protecting
the health insurance companies and the corporate profits that come from it, that they would rather keep the government shut down than negotiate with Democrats and somehow keep trying to find ways to blame them.
So the premium credits are going away.
And the open enrollment period begins on November 1st.
That's this Saturday.
And some of the prices are already being released as far as
how much more it's going to cost Wisconsin families.
And the Office of Commissioner of Insurance put out some examples.
So here are some examples for you quick before we take a break here.
Family of four.
Income $130,000 a year.
And you're looking for a silver plan on the marketplace.
And you live in Eau Claire County.
And right now, thanks to those enhanced tax credits, that family of four pays $704 a month for health insurance $700 a month for health insurance.
When those tax credits go away, come Saturday, if they want to renew, it's going to cost $2,700.
Not $700, $700.
That's $24,000 a year in higher health insurance costs.
In Racine County, it goes from $1,000 for that family of four to $2,400 a month.
for a total of $16,600 a year more that Republicans want you to pay.
If you're 60 years old and it's just a couple living together, $85,000 a year income, and you're say in, you know, Brown County, currently costs you $600, starting Saturday, $2,700, an extra $25,000 a year for a couple that's still five years away from qualifying for Medicare and Social Security.
And there's more.
I'll give you more throughout the coming days here.
Examples of this is what Republicans actually want.
They'd rather protect the health insurance company profits than to take your taxes and make health insurance more affordable for everybody.
Instead, they want to give it away to billionaires.
That's your money they're doing it with.
Today's history lesson is next.
I'm Pat Crightlow.
You're up north.
Today's history lesson begins with a little
journey.?
That?
of course is Steve Perry who made his debut with Journey this day in 1977.
playing with them for the first time in San Francisco with a song I believe dedicated to the city by the Bay there.
On this day in 1492 Christopher Columbus lands in Cuba on his journey to the New World and figured he was in Japan.
He was not in Japan, but it just goes to show you GPS has always been a necessity We're very lucky to have it when we do on this day in 1636 the Massachusetts Bay Colony voted to establish a theological college The college started this day in 1636 would later become known as Harvard University The number one song this day in 1978 was by Nick
Gilder
On this day in 1886, the Statue of Liberty was dedicated by President Grover Cleveland.
On this day in 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis came to an end as Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev ordered the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba.
That was 1962.
On this day in 1963, the Beach Boys released this little bit of school spirit.
So be true to?
your school releases day 1963 includes part of the Hawthorne High School fight song where the Wilson brothers went to school.
On this day in 1919, the Volstead Act is passed by Congress.
You know it better as Prohibition.
The Volstead Act established a nationwide prohibition on alcohol.
Congress passed it overriding a veto by President Woodrow Wilson.
Happy birthday to country singer Brad Paisley who turns 53
today.?
All right, let's look at some of the other birthdays here Parker.
I don't know if you watch a lot of What was it young Sheldon?
Where
plays Mima?
and so there's a generation that only knows Annie Potts as you know kind of this older actress playing these grandmotherly role roles and then some of us You know remember way back when she was on designing women and she's been acting for a very long time She is 73 years old today
The late Charlie Daniels was born this day in 1936, passed away in 2020.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates is 70 years old today.
Actress Julia Roberts is 58 and actor Joaquin Phoenix is 51 years old today.
So, going back to Brad Paisley's birthday, he's 53.
He was born this day in 1972.
On that day when he was born, Stevie Wonder released his 15th studio album called Talking Book with this track.
Superstition was one of the big singles off talking book and as was you are the sunshine of my life again, released 53 years ago today.
On this day in 1948, Chuck Berry got married.
He married Thameda Tadi Suggs and you know a lot of rock and roll marriages, they don't last.
There's did.
Chuck Berry remained married until he died at the age of 90 in 2017.
That's a marriage that lasted 68 years.
On this day in 1985, the number one song was by Whitney Houston.
That again was 1985 that it was the number one hit and go up just a couple of years to 1989 and At the top of the album charts you would find Jen Jackson with rhythm nation rhythm nation 1814 I mean
Rhythm Nation was a blockbuster.
It had love will never do without you.
Of course, the Rhythm Nation title track escapade and much more again this day in 1989.
So that's about that's it.
Kind of a slower day on the day for music and history.
You know, there's some days where it's like we don't need we need more than 15 minutes to cover all of this.
And some days we can just move right on to the national day calendar.
And so it's let's head back over to sickbay.
and see what Parker has to say about what
we're
able to find.
I'm
fine.
I'm
fine.
OK.
He's now seeing things.
What was on the National Day Calendar today?
National Day Calendar.
It is National Chocolate Day, Pat.
Are you a big chocolate guy?
Of course I am.
But here's where I take, again, we have a little fun with this calendar, but we don't have the staffing time to possibly look into this.
Oh boy.
To collect everything that's on the national day calendar and how many different days are dedicated to chocolate?
There's
always
something chocolate it feels like every so often, or dogs.
How many different dog days?
There's a lot of dogs.
There's
a lot of dog days on the calendar.
So
So apparently this is the overarching one.
It's just national chocolate day.
Not chocolate ice cream.
No.
Not chocolate pie.
Not anything like that.
Not there's dark chocolate day.
Probably, you know, Belgian chocolate day.
Chocolate chip day.
It's just about the chocolate.
Just it.
As far as I know.
Okay.
That's what they tell me.
Hey, that's fine.
I mean, for breakfast, like, you know, again, the whole secret to making chip of waffles here in Chippewa Falls.
is the little mini chocolate chips.
Oh, do you know what I saw in my kitchen this morning?
Apparently the,
well, besides the chipped coffee pot.
Yeah, exactly.
Anyway, no, the grocery store apparently ran out of semi-sweet chocolate chips.
And so somebody brought home dark chocolate chocolate chips.
Milk chocolate over dark chocolate?
Yes.
Okay.
I'm starting to see what it is that has weakened your immune system to this point.
It's a need for dark chocolate and coffee.
Well,
Oh gosh, that that time he tried Malort.
I don't even know exactly what Malort is.
No
But watching them try it is just oh my gosh, it was hilarious.
So you need to have that's the deal is you need dark chocolate after drinking some of that as well.
That's what I'm told.
That's what I hear.
not
try it.
Okay.
No, no, I'm not either.
I saw that.
I heard it.
It was it was disgusting.
There's so many other pairings where chocolate goes great.
Like when you discover the combination of chocolate and raspberries, for example, or chocolate and strawberries.
But I mean, a family tradition here at Casa de Craitlo is a chocolate cake with raspberry filling as as kind of the frosting in the middle.
I mean, that's just that's
amazing.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Luke is asking on the text line.
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, eat the chocolate and enjoy.
He says I would reference the Billy Madison scene with shampoo and conditioner bottles saying dark chocolate is better than milk chocolate but I don't know if Parker would get the reference.
Honestly, I don't either.
So I thought Parker might which is why I bring it up.
Swing and a mess for that.
All
over there.
Tony, right now on YouTube.
Oh, Lord is the spawn of Satan.
Yep.
That could very well be.
All right.
We've had enough fun with national chocolate day.
Is there anything more worthy of its own day?
We definitely
Oh, very nice.
Good touch there.
Yeah.
I mean, especially the first responders, you cannot possibly say enough about.
A, how grateful we all are, and B, how there is probably, I'm guessing, a perpetual need for the next generation of first responders.
If you are interested in any way, shape, or form, it is something that you should consider pursuing, or at least learning more and seeing if it is the right field for you.
All right, so that's what's on the calendar for today.
Let's see what we can find in some entertainment news.
We don't make Parker Watch TMZ.
So he just finds this free form over the internet.
What should we talk about this
Oh, good.
Okay.
viewer.
That's good.
Go ahead.
aneurysm.
Oh, oh, yeah.
Well, yes, if you were, if Kanye West were the father of your children and all that, yes, of course, you'd have perpetual stress.
I mean, at least she's got some reason to be stressful.
What else could it be that she's a celebrity, you know, that her daughter is a billionaire?
If there's anybody who should not have stress in their life.
It is Kim Kardashian.
But can Kanye West cause an aneurysm?
Yes.
Yes, I believe that he can.
caused more than one.
Yeah.
There's a note here about Wicked.
Did you see the first movie?
I
I meant to.
I like musicals.
I believe if I saw the commercial right, Peacock is going to have it for folks that want to watch it before seeing the second one, which will wrap up the whole show.
It was already a long enough play on Broadway.
It was like three plus hours.
And they've now turned it into like five, six hours of movie time.
And so if you want to see the rest of it, you got to head to the theaters here soon.
So what's the entertainment note about Wicked today?
Her music career was basically stalled.
She did not really want to do music anymore, or at least didn't want to create any more albums.
But Wicked let her find her creativity again.
So she's back.
She's made an album, and she's got a tour as well, all thanks to being Wicked.
All right.
Well, hey, you never know what's going to spark something.
We talked about it with the Billy Joel documentary for a time he thought he was done.
then, you know, something sparked a little bit of creativity here.
All right.
And lastly, in Parker's top three entertainment stories of the day,
I know.
know.
because I watched TMZ.
for folks who are making a face at their radio, I spend all day surrounded by the news and by politics and and Sherry spends the day surrounded by all kinds of medical crises.
And so we just want at the end of the day, we want to find the dumbest thing imaginable and turn our brains off.
And it TMZ is what did it for.
So that's how I know that Katy Perry's boyfriend is former Canadian premier Justin Trudeau.
And they're an adorable couple.
They are.
Are they?
I haven't seen.
whale watching together.
I think, yes, they were.
They were.
And I'm happy for them.
They're happy.
I'm like Kim and Kanye, where Tony writes on YouTube.
I bet Kanye tells Kim or kids look like pigs in a blanket.
I can't imagine the level of stress.
Kids?
What?
Tony?
Pigs in a blanket?
They're cute.
Tony off the top rope.
Oh, coming down on Parker.
Oh, it's just a shame.
Oh, the humanity.
Much more coming up after the 7 o'clock news.
I'm Pat Kratlow.
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.
Thank you.
That was Cindy, one of Tony's little pigs in a blanket.
Joining us on the
Sure.
Yeah, you go with that uh from on the on the text line from lori in hayward.
She writes uh, good morning patent parker How coincidental that the statue of liberty was recognized on this day so many years ago and today we celebrate national immigration day Wouldn't it be nice if ice would take the day off and celebrate national immigration day?
Well, uh, yes, I and now I don't think it's a coincidence Uh, I think national immigration day was picked for just that reason the statue of liberty's dedication But yeah, wouldn't it be interesting if it was just a
a national holiday that day to note the people for whom, you know, 99% of us are, you know, immigrants in some way shape or form and that maybe we once again learn the value of immigrants to this country.
What we're seeing instead are a political class of people willing to want to make migrants the scapegoat for everything that befalls them and they're celebrating.
that all this food assistance is being cut.
They are celebrating that health insurance costs are about to skyrocket because somehow it's all going to quote unquote, illegals and just other migrants.
I mean, I know it sounds harsh, but if only they're away, if we could just...
deport racists and bring in people who actually want to work hard and make a life for themselves in this country without having to basically take a dump on everybody else.
Worry about yourself, work hard and maybe channel that anger toward the people who are really preventing you from flourishing and it's usually not immigrants.
It's usually somebody who wants to make sure that
their pain a tax rate as low or lower than yours that they can deny health insurance to you and your family and on and on it goes.
But if they can just get you thinking it's the immigrants instead that are the problem, well then they're the ones who are going to flourish that way.
And kind of a sign of the times here.
I've always enjoyed going to a parade of homes, seeing what's out there in any given community.
You know, the Chippewa Valley has a parade of homes and let's see in the Milwaukee area they do.
And I will, I do like seeing the homes and I do like seeing the homes that are maybe a little out of our price range, but they're nice to see anyway.
So I get that that's a feature of it.
But just something struck me kind of funny about this story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from Francesca Pica.
that says Menominee Falls mansion featured on Parade of Homes sells for $4.5 million.
The 9000 square foot home spent just weeks on the market before selling for four and a half million on October 14.
And don't get me wrong, I'm happy for them.
I'm happy for the buyer.
I'm happy for the seller.
This is not about you know, nobody should be wealthy.
It's about the system itself that
has allowed us to get to a point where on the parade of homes, we now celebrate that there's this four and a half million dollar mansion that we can go see.
Meanwhile, we have an issue with affordable housing, the lack of it, the lack of space where starting families can live instead of paying rent.
This is where we've come at this point to have four and a half million dollar homes on the parade of homes.
Congratulations to all of them.
But boy, I would I would love to see the parade of affordable homes that a nice young professional family could afford to move into.
I'd love to see more of that.
Some sad news out of the Milwaukee area as well.
Long time news anchor for WISN Channel 12, Jerry Taff has passed away at the age of 85.
Jerry Taff was known for his signature sign off good night and better tomorrows.
He died in his home state of Texas.
He was such a part of the the TV dial and the radio dial frankly in Milwaukee for a long time.
He delivered the news for WISN.
From 1979 to 2005 He he and Kathy Michael being a host of other co-anchors, you know propelled Channel 12 to first place at 10 p.m.
You know knocking off per pitch perpetual juggernaut TMJ He was
He described Milwaukee as, you know, the place that he loves to be, even though he said, no places is especially totally feels like home.
He said in a 2005 interview, but Milwaukee feels more like home than any place else.
Jerry Taff was extremely polarizing for, you know, how they have those polls for favorite anchor and least favorite anchor in a given market.
He was second in the running for favorite anchor.
and first in the polling for least favorite anchor.
And even I will admit, from the four years we lived in Milwaukee, while Sherry was going to med school, he was kind of in acquired taste and that you weren't really sure if you liked this guy or not.
Then you realized, hey, he's just, he's doing his job.
He's got his own unique style.
And sometimes he's going to say things in a way that maybe don't sit well with you.
We're still talking about Jerry Taff, right?
I'm not talking into a mirror here.
Anyway, you just learned that people have their quirks.
And if you have quirks enough that some people gravitate towards you, you're going to do well in a given job, in a given market.
And that's exactly what Jerry Taft did.
And again, passed away at the age of 85, but is going to be very well remembered by a Milwaukee TV audience for all that he did.
All right, let's look ahead to the rest of the morning here on mornings with Pat right low powered by up from with news on the civic media radio network Now we will be talking to Dan Hagan from News Watch 12 WJFW TV in Rhinelander Who's not nearly as polarizing as other TV anchors that could name nobody doesn't like Dan Hagan
And we'll be talking to him coming up in a bit.
We will also be talking to James Kelly, who does the news for civic media out of our newsroom here in the Chippewa Valley.
And we'll be joined by Jeff Renneke from Friends of the Apostle Islands.
The Apostle Islands is not a national park.
It's a national lakeshore, but that still has some functions that can be impacted by the government shutdown.
And we will be asking Jeff more about that.
Then of course, in our eight o'clock hour, as usual, Courier Newsroom's Cam Stevenson will join us from Capitol Hill to let us know if there's any progress on resolving the government shutdown.
And then finally, we'll visit with Ruth Conniff from the Wisconsin Examiner.
All that more ahead, two more hours to go.
on these mornings powered by UpNorth News on the Civic Media Radio Network.
I'm Pat Krightler.
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