The Shadow Strikes Again (Hour 2)

Across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Gritlow, powered by Up North News.

Now, from our Lake Wissota studio, here's the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Gritlow.

Well, hey there, Wisconsin.

Good morning.

It is 6.06.

It is Friday morning, December 5th.

2025, another beautiful morning to have you here up north, live from Lake Wissota, from wherever you're listening across the Civic Media Radio Network.

Thanks for joining us on the radio or by podcast or through the app, however you got here.

Way to wrap up the work week.

Let's do it strong before, well, before the next round of snow comes in and then cold and then another round of snow and then cold and then another round of snow.

And at some point we're going to get back about freezing, just not in the near future.

I got a question for you.

If you could wave a magic wand and your next car would be a wood paneled station wagon from 1971 that got eight miles a gallon and blew out a choking cloud of exhaust, would you take that deal?

Because Sean Duffy thinks you would.

He wants to bring back the wood.

He thinks that by cutting environmental standards,

for mileage requirements for automobiles.

He, honest to God, really said this.

The wood paneled station wagon might make a comeback.

Fine, Mr. Secretary, you first.

Here's the other question that I do want to ask you about today because it is apparently lighting things up online.

And for that, we got to bring in our producer Parker Olson down in Madison Studio A2.

The Milwaukee Brewers yesterday showed off their new road uniforms.

They're not really new.

They are

Once again, going a bit retro and instead of the the road grays, they are going to have a powder blue top that says Milwaukee across it.

That's right.

They're bringing back the powder blue.

But notice I said powder blue tops and that Parker is where the controversy comes in.

The comment section as I'm looking through it at four o'clock this morning is lit.

up.

Tell the people why everybody else is so angry about these new road uniforms, Parker.

Gray pants.

Gray pants.

Why

didn't change the pants?

Why didn't

change the pants?

I love the comments and I mean all I'm talking hundreds

because

I scrolled.

And I cannot believe how worked up people are that they don't also have powder blue pants, which is pretty much what the Brewery's uniform was from like 1971 to 1985.

Yeah.

Okay.

The powder blue itself actually isn't all that new either because of those brew

crew

city connect jerseys.

So powder blue was gone from like 1985 to 2022.

Yeah.

So three years ago, they had these Brewery uniforms that I

I personally do not really like, but other people love it.

But, you know, powder blue.

So now powder blue is going to be the road unis, but not the whole uni.

They're still going to keep the gray pants and people have

lost their mind.

Pat, it is absolutely the dumbest thing that they're not bringing back the powder blue pants.

It is

just absurd to me.

It's like wearing powder blue tops.

and gray pants is like wearing a black suit jacket and like navy pants to me.

Like it doesn't make any sense.

I didn't realize what a fashionista you were.

I'm a very

big uniform guy.

See, here's the thing.

I would have seen it, you know, when the season starts and I would have said, ooh, could they not afford new pants?

And I would have left it at that.

But the fact that so many people want to get into the comment sections and say, what are you doing?

It tells me that, thankfully, it's

kind of a

slow

news week.

Part of the problem, too, to me is that this is the second time that they've done this, because I think that the City Connect should have had powder blue pants.

Instead, they made white pants for the City Connects.

We don't have white pants already.

We have white pants with pinstripes, and we have cream-colored pants.

We don't have white pants.

So they intentionally made those for the city connect.

It was a very, very, very intentional choice not to have powder blue pants.

Pat, I'm upset.

People

are clearly upset about this.

And I mean, look, they're not the only powder blue uniforms out there.

There are a couple of other clubs that have brought it back.

You know, I, you know, the Minnesota twins, for example, their, their whole seventies look is, you know, red, white and blue pinstripe or striping on powder blue uniforms.

So I mean,

It's not new, but boy, if you don't, if you don't match the pants, yikes.

So there we go, eight, five, five, seven, five, civic eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two.

Although what, what are we going to get a movement going here?

And the team's going to go, you're right.

We found, we found some extra money between the couch cushions and we can afford to get the matching pants now.

Yeah, I would love that to happen.

I don't think it's going to happen because it was obviously a choice that they did this and they think that this is the best.

Somebody thinks it's the best.

Somebody does.

I don't know who,

but somebody is wrong.

And somebody is really getting an earful online.

Also coming up on the program today, we'll have our regular weekend review panel.

That would include former US Attorney Jim Santel, and we are going to talk to him about how the right wing justices on the US Supreme Court yesterday once again used a very shady tactic.

to engage in political activism.

This time, they're letting Texas Republicans get away with rigging the congressional maps so that voters have less say over who represents them in next year's election.

This is truly dirty stuff.

Jim Santel will tell us more, but the upshot is this.

They use the so-called shadow docket where they issue emergency opinions on cases that are actually still pending.

And this case is still pending.

A lower court said the obvious.

These maps are rigged.

Get out of here.

You can't use them.

But the far right justices, using the shadow dock, they said, well, you know, while the case is working its way up to us, temporarily, we're going to allow those maps to be used.

which kind of negates the whole purpose of bringing the case to court in the first place.

So Jim Santel will tell us more, maybe he'll tell me I'm wrong, we'll see how that goes.

8-5-5-7-5-CIVIC, again our phone number to comment on that, or anything else that's coming up today.

Temperatures around the state range, they're all between 10 and 20.

Everybody pretty much is in the teens, a couple of tens, a couple of 20s, but otherwise everybody's in the teens across Wisconsin.

and awaiting the next round of light snow that'll be moving into western and then southwestern Wisconsin before long.

Nothing heavy, but again enough to slick up the roads and maybe force you to get the shovel out once again.

And then we'll wait a day or two in the still cold weather before another round of potentially light snow comes through the area.

So stay tuned to your Civic Media station for your local forecast throughout the day.

In our Up North News Daily newsletter, which you can sign up for at UpNorthNewsWI.com, Ellie Bordeaux passes along another reader photo.

It's a gorgeous one from Shawamagin Bay.

I didn't read the particular, so I don't know if it came out of the Ashland area, Bayfield, someplace else, but just a beautiful photo of the smoke rising off of Shawamagin Bay on a cold, cold day.

Also a story about how federal cuts to special education are hurting Wisconsin kids in their schools.

And then her locals love section, you know, it was a holiday week last week, so we didn't get a full week of shows to talk about this, but what she was asking last week was about, you know, favorite holiday dishes.

And she tells us in today's newsletter that next week, we'll get back into the locals theme of it.

What's your favorite local supper club?

Now, admittedly, not every place has what you would consider a supper club, but, you know, maybe enough of a formal restaurant or...

something that's close enough to a supper club that qualifies.

And again, you know, this we're not looking, you know, don't don't feel too competitive about it.

We're just looking where's where's the nice one in your area?

Where's it that you like to go?

Now, we have kind of an embarrassment of riches around here.

We have several good supper clubs to choose from.

We used to have quite a few more.

But sadly, they've been, you know, closing up their doors over the past, you know, 1020 years or so.

But

Again, there's still plenty to choose from.

And we'd love to know if you have a favorite one.

So throughout the course of next week, we may be asking you about that.

And of course, to find out what the readers are saying, you can sign up for our newsletters over at UpNorthNewsWI.com.

And that includes our Sunday morning newsletter that I put together that sums up the week's political news.

So come on and be a part of that.

Also coming up today, Mike Clemens will be talking about sports.

We've of course got the Packers Bears coming up this weekend.

And if you missed it a few minutes ago, Mike Clemens mentioning that Yanis Santeticupo is going to be out two to four weeks with a calf injury and

That's going to shake up an already shaken Milwaukee Bucks team.

Dr. Kristen Lierly will be around as well as she is on Fridays.

And of course, if you can't stick around for all of this, well, you can always pod this program by heading over to Spotify or Apple, wherever you get your podcasts and follow us that way.

All right, Sean Duffy.

You know, the guy that says, you know, don't wear your pajamas on the airplane.

Apparently you got to get all gussied up now.

Again, he had a good first half of the message.

Be civil, be nice at the airports, the dressing up thing, I'm not so sure about.

Anyway, the transportation secretary, the former congressman for Up North, has decided to go along with what the Trump administration is doing this week and that is

taking an axe to environmental standards for automobiles.

You know, over the years cars have gotten more and more fuel efficient and that's helped car companies sell more cars.

But of course the guy who'd love to have all the cars burning coal if he could has decided to weaken those rules.

Well, Sean Duffy was asked about it when he was interviewed on CNBC.

And basically, as the Huffington Post calls it, he went the full Clark Griswold on the return of one particular vehicle.

His words were, this rule, because he says it's all about choice, this rule will allow you to bring back the 1970s station wagon, maybe with a little wood paneling on the side, will bring back choice to consumers.

So yeah, the minivan is awesome, but maybe the station wagon is cool too.

Those are the actual words of our former congressman up north and our secretary of defense and I will again as I've been saying since 2012 say I can't believe I lost to this guy But anyway, he has a tendency to say these things and and then the internet Does its thing?

Comments include why do they keep insisting on bringing America backwards?

Another says yeah bring back that station wagon that got eight miles to the gallon and spewed toxic fumes another says nobody

especially those of us who drove a station wagon with wood paneling ever wants to return to station wagons with wood paneling.

Another says, next up from the Trump administration, rotary phones and asbestos.

There's this one that says, relentlessly trying to convince the gullible that you can take America backwards.

Another says, wouldn't it be nice if a certain political party decided to live in the present rather than trying to recreate the past?

And another says, it's funny what parts of the past these guys want to revive.

There were virtually no billionaires in the 1970s.

Housing costs were lower.

People weren't so stressed about their careers and dire consequences of failure, but Sean Duffy and company, they just want to bring back the gas guzzlers.

And several people posting photos of Clark Griswold in the woody from the vacation movies as well.

And on and on it goes.

And because again,

This whole thing about choice that this is gonna bring choice.

Do you know what people have chosen over the years?

They've chosen to spend less on gasoline Because or they've chosen to go with hybrids or EVs Because they know the future the future is more fuel efficient.

We don't want to go back and yet

somehow you have an administration, a mindset of a president that says, you know, the good old days are going to make a comeback.

Well, as Billy Joel said, you know, the good old days weren't always good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems.

But again, if you're going to romanticize it, you're going to dam us all to having choking clouds of exhaust again coming out of some people's cars in the name of choice.

Courier Newsroom's Keeva Keel joins us in just a bit to talk about this week's headlines.

First, from the heart of America's up north, live from Lake Wissota, thanks for making this the place to spend part of your Friday mornings.

I'm Pat Rightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Welcome back on this Friday morning, 622.

Now let's check in with Kia Vakil, Courier of Newsrooms National, political editor Kia.

Hello.

How are you?

I'm well, Pat.

I'm glad the weekend's almost here.

Ah, you and me both.

This is always a good milestone for me that we're getting there.

And we can look back on some of the week's headlines.

And a couple of them are fairly recent here.

People may not have heard yet that yesterday it looks like they may have finally found the guy that planted pipe bombs.

It was at both party headquarters, right?

Democratic and Republican overnight before January 6th.

A lot of us weren't ever expecting to

find that they have a suspect, it seems like they do now.

Yeah, they arrested a Virginia man and, you know, 30 year old, basically, you know, Attorney General Pam Bondi said they basically, the investigators went back through evidence that already the FBI had already collected and did not, they did not specify what in that evidence led to them to this man.

And they said they did say there were no new tips.

So,

you know, we'll see like I think we if this is genuinely this aspect, that's great that there's going to be accountability.

I am unfortunately at this point so skeptical of anything Pam Bondi or Kash Patel tell us without showing us the evidence.

And I understand why they wouldn't.

We have no reason not to believe in this instance of this man is a

viable suspect.

But you know, I we should we should want to see what determines that this man Brian Cole was the suspect.

Well, yeah, because look, just jumping into the next topic here, the the one particular boat strike with the the second missile attack on survivors cleaning the wreckage.

You see these reports ABC had reports that, you know, sources said that the two men were trying to make the boat upright and

carry on with their drug run, which, I mean, that stretches credulity, that they're trying to overturn this boat.

They were helpless in the water.

So the lesson here is just because the administration or somebody quotes administration sources, that's not any kind of definitive view of things at all.

No, and it's definitely not.

And just to be clear, there are some pieces of evidence in the charging documents themselves of this.

pipe bomber guy suspect.

So if those pen out, then that's great investigative work.

You know, in terms of the boat situation, that's a whole, that's just one of the most egregious things I've ever seen, to be honest.

And, you know, no one's saying that drug traffickers shouldn't face

the legal system or some form of actual

the legal system right as opposed to you know whatever this is that's happening here and I think the thing that was uh but just not not good for me was to have democrats and republicans in a closed door hearing yesterday see the full video and the republicans come out of it and say nope nothing nothing to see here that that to me is is troubling

Yeah, and I mean you saw there was a Democratic congressman named Jim Himes who said came out and said it's one of the most troubling things he's ever seen in public life

He has a long career of being in these closed-door meetings.

He's not like some schlep off the street He knows what he's talking about and says these guys were shipwrecked and you know, we shouldn't have done what got done

Yeah, and look I understand drug drug traffickers are not sympathetic figures.

I completely understand that I wouldn't argue that

but they're human beings and their legal system exists for a reason.

And if we are now saying that we can just, um, at will bomb people for no, for, you know, because we want to, or because, you know, a lunatic is in charge of the war department, defense department, whatever you want to call it.

That sets an unbelievably dangerous precedent.

Rules are supposed to exist, laws are supposed to exist for a reason because if you don't have that, then what you have is chaos and violence and we're just back to our, you know, most base selves.

And I don't think people should want that because then we've seen what happens in history when people aren't, there aren't structures to deal with these sorts of risk.

And guess what?

We see that in the ICE arrests lately as well.

The New York Times put out some numbers on Thursday that showed that compared to how things used to be when the arrests of immigrants, a much higher percentage of them had actually been facing criminal charges.

But here, we're talking single digits in terms of the percentage of these people that are being arrested who were facing some kind of criminal charge.

Hardly the so-called bad guys that Trump said they were going to be rounding up.

much more to me like a police state, a race based police state.

That's exactly what it is.

It's, you know, they've been greenlit to racially profiled by Brett Kavanaugh and the Supreme Court.

They are fully just going after anyone who is, you know, appears to be brown and public basically.

They are detaining and arresting US citizens and then later releasing them because they don't, it's fully based on who they think.

based on their idea of what an undocumented immigrant is, who they think that is, that's who they're going after.

And yeah, obviously, when you racially profile people, you are going to arrest people who are undocumented immigrants.

But they're arresting people with no criminal charges.

They're landscapers.

They're construction workers.

They are roofers.

They are food vendors.

They are school teachers, as we've seen.

They are people who contribute to their communities, who make a living, who pay taxes, who, you know, are.

live in this country for decades in many cases.

Some of them came here as six months old, six month olds.

And you're telling me that those people are dangerous?

No, most of the people being detained have no violent convictions and overwhelming percentage do not.

And basically, you know, this is Trump, we've seen Trump repeatedly use the frame of re-migration.

This has nothing to do with undocumented immigration.

He wants to make all immigration illegal unless it's white South Africans.

Yeah, let's close on a lighter note with just a few seconds we have left here.

How's that ballroom coming along at the White House?

Well, it hit a bit of a speed bump this week.

Trump fired the architect who he had hired to build it, you know, seemingly after some disagreements about how big it should be.

And so did

this guy not understand the word huge because that I'm sure that was his only instruction, make it huge and gold leafed.

Yeah, unclear.

Basically, Trump wants it to be huge and the firm, the architect and his firm apparently had raised some concerns about it out, you know, being bigger than the actual White House itself, which, you know, I can understand why someone would have a concern about that.

But yeah, it's not fully clear if he fired him or if he quit or if they just, you know, parted ways in some but, you know,

It's not going anywhere fast is what we're trying to say here.

Exactly.

Yeah, don't plan to your reservation yet to hold prom there or something like that.

So if you have a keel, thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Have a good start to the weekend.

You too.

Thanks, Pat.

I pack right low.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

It's time once again for today's history lesson on mornings with Pat Franco.

To all who

come to this happy place, welcome.

Ladies and gentlemen,

the Beatles.

That's one small step for man.

Well, I'm not a

crook.

You believe in miracles yet?

You know, this depression is going to be so great.

We'll be the ones eating the cats and the dogs.

That's going to be fun.

Once again, it is time to take another revealing peek back into history.

We

kick off today's history lesson with a little Richard Peneman.

You know I'm better as a little Richard.

Born this day in 1932, a little long tall Sally to kick things off.

For the late Little Richard, passed away back in 2020.

Welcome to today's history lesson on a Friday.

Wait, did I say Friday, Parker?

You did?

What does that mean, Pat?

It means Greg Bakus here.

Boys and girls, Greg Bakus joined us for our Friday history lesson.

Woo!

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome

to the history lesson.

Even Little Richard is singing for that one.

That's great.

How are you?

I'm doing quite peachily keen.

I'm loving this song.

Not now the nearly 10 hour probably more Beatles anthology was remastered redone and re-released on Disney plus over Thanksgiving and this song is a huge part of the first episode as the Beatles were very very very Influenced by little Richard.

So hearing that song takes me back to watching that episode so long last week

ago

But now I have to rewatch it.

It's been, like you said, 30 years.

Oh, and there's added bits of interviews.

They've taken some things out, which

I don't really like.

And then they've added a whole other episode that's completely devoted to the songs they did off of John Lennon's demos, which, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Although I remember from The Beatles' Love Album, I loved what they did with Strawberry Fields Forever.

Oh, yes.

Where you heard three different phases of it.

It's very earliest phase, the middle phase, and then the final phase, and they strung that all together as one song.

Yeah.

That was that part of it was really nice.

Yeah.

Also born this day, Walt Disney in 1901.

He passed away in 1966.

Or did he?

Dun dun dun.

Had in a bucket somewhere, somewhere in a freezer.

Put his head in a bucket of water, freeze it for a while, and just we'll come back to it later.

I don't

know.

For those who don't follow, I guess he was big into cryogenics.

When I was a kid, I watched the show I Carly a lot.

It was on Nickelodeon and there was an episode where they were going to like a TV network and they did a like spoof of this and like the guys that was frozen.

Yeah.

I did not know the reference then, but I do now.

Oh,

very, very deep comedy for children.

I know.

I'm glad we could fill in the blank since your I Carly days, which were what three years ago that we can finally fill that in for you.

That's that's really a

joke to say, like, we know adults are watching this with the kids.

Let's give them something.

Yep.

See, I always like that, though.

You got to throw the adults a bone.

That's that's the key right there.

Absolutely.

This day in 1964, I don't know.

I didn't even know the Beach Boys had a concert album.

I'm not used to hearing like screaming fans at a

Beach Boys

concert,

but they did have a concert album and it went to number one this day in 1964.

Oh, no.

Sorry, Parker.

I now realize that I gave you the link to the actual concert album.

Yeah,

I

did.

All right, well, Parker.

I'm changing it now.

Hang on.

Oh, man.

Guys, this has been a rough week for me.

This is live radio.

This is live radio when Parker just decides to get lazy and look up the thing instead of actually

doing the job and using the Wankers

patch.

Yes.

I

totally get it.

All right.

Parker, here we go.

Because of people like you.

This next song, I've seen, sold over a million copies for us.

It was number one in the nation.

Round, round, get

around, I get around, yeah, get around, yeah.

See, to me, it's like you took the screeners from the Beatles at the Ed Sullivan show, and you dropped them into a Beach Boys album.

You don't normally hear that together.

Yeah, yeah.

It's very interesting to hear that.

And just in the 60s, like the.

Those fans did not hear that music at all.

They just heard other people screaming.

Yes.

Yeah, I hear that all the time.

They didn't really hear the songs exactly.

We have a birthday to note today.

Christian Yelich turns 34 years old today.

And I want to know what Christian Yelich thinks of the powder blue uniforms with the gray pants.

Did you hear the big controversy here, Greg?

I got an email from the borrower saying, hey, you know what?

The powder blue is back.

Why don't you buy it yourself for like not probably like $300?

I'm fine with it.

I don't care.

That doesn't bother me.

I grew up with the powder blue.

But

the pants.

The controversy.

They didn't change the pants.

They're still using the gray road pants.

with the powder blue tops and the comment sections have lost their collective minds.

Oh, as has Parker.

Parker feels very strongly about this.

Parker, do me a favor because, you know, I have a mortgage to pay.

Sorry, that was a very old man of me to say I apologize.

That was ages to do.

I didn't like that at all that I just said there.

I apologize.

Send me a link to that.

I want to look at this for myself because I saw a powder blue in my email and then I heard powder blue and

I'm like,

hi.

the journal is getting traction.

Anyway, on this day in 1933, the 21st Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified.

What did that mean?

It meant the end of prohibition on this day in 1933.

All right, we're going to go from the Beach Boys to the Beatles.

Tomorrow marks the 60th anniversary, 1965, of the day when the Beatles released an album and a double-sided single.

They were very productive back in that day.

The single was We Can Work It Out and then this was on the flip side.

I can't believe Daytrip is the flip side of something.

Now the album was no afterthought.

So they released this double-sided single, and then they released now, Rubber Soul.

Yeah.

Yeah.

OK.

OK.

You know, Nowhere Man, In My Life, Norwegian Wood.

So here's an album.

Here's a couple of singles.

I mean, if you thought Taylor Swift was dumping things on people, she learned a lesson from the best 60 years ago this weekend.

That, to me, there's something about that.

in the old days where bands would put out like two, three records a year.

Yeah.

Yep.

And, you know, nowadays you're like, oh, we just released an album seven years later.

Oh, I know.

People are like, where's Rihanna?

It's been, you know, seven, eight years.

That's never happening again.

I don't

think she's ever going to make

another record again.

Nope.

But then, and then you get, and then like.

less than a year later, you get revolver.

You know, just a pittance of an album with no hits.

No one ever remembered it again.

No,

no, no, of course not.

And then there's your one hit, Wonders, which takes us to our next birthday.

And that would be Andy Kim, who is 79 years old today.

Baby, baby.

Rock me jelly.

Rock me

stone.

Take it easy.

I don't you know.

This is in your 70s bubblegum Hall of Fame right here.

Do you know what I say about people who are one hit wonders, Pat?

What's that?

One more hit than I got, so I'm not going to hate on them.

Yep, exactly.

And the thing is, here's the asterisk.

He's actually not quite a one hit wonder.

It's more like one and a half.

Because as it turns out, he was part of the Archies, the cartoon show, the Saturday morning cartoon.

And he co-wrote their hit, Sugar Sugar.

And it was one of the singers in the Archies.

Well, then I say

he's

got two hits.

I'd say one and a half since nobody knew he was in the Archies.

So Andy Kim is 79 today.

Did you

just say you've never heard of the Archies?

Not

once.

Oh, OK.

OK.

Comic books.

You've heard of comic books?

Comic

books.

The show Riverdale.

Do you know the show Riverdale?

I have heard of it.

That is a dark version of the Archies.

A very adult version of the Archies.

That's

funny.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

So Andy Kim is 79.

One year younger is Jim Messina.

He turns 78 years old today.

This,

of course, was Loggins and Messina.

Kenny Loggins and Jim Messina, who turned 78 years old today before Kenny Loggins went off and he did a few things on his own.

Again,

again, went off into the wind and no one ever heard from

him

again.

Never, ever.

I saw a great clip from the office where he gets in the car and puts on some logins.

He goes, all right, find some logins in Messina.

He goes, did I say Messina?

Perfect.

And Jim Messina, again, no slouch.

He was in Buffalo Springfield.

And then Poco after Loggins and Messina.

So he done good too.

78 years old today.

Happy birthday to him.

On this day in 1766, you've heard of Christie's Auction House in London.

On this day in 1766, auctioneer James Christie held his first ever sale in London.

On this day in 1776, Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest academic honor society, held its first meeting at the College of William and Mary.

On this day in 1993, at a video shoot for the Travis Tritt remake of The Eagles Take It Easy, the Eagles themselves reunited.

I really liked the Travis Tritt tune and I really liked it.

I'm going to bring the volume up here for the chorus.

I like this part.

I'm like, these background singers, they got really good harmony.

It turns out it was the Eagles themselves who were singing this.

That video shoot led to them reuniting.

And that video shoot, as I continue reading my notes, led to them reuniting.

Good job.

They're not going to

give me a heads up, bro.

They had been broken up for 13 years to that point.

And the next year, 1994, they got back together after what they called a 14-year vacation.

It's funny because

A certain generation, like Parker's generation, grew up with the Eagles in their life on the radio, knowing they were band touring, that their parents might go see.

Whereas I grew up knowing that the Eagles would rather fight each other in a boxing ring than get back together on stage.

Yes.

Which, again, will say for the umpteenth time, if you've never seen the Eagles documentary, you got to.

Because it includes the footage of them breaking up.

I mean, literally breaking up, almost getting into a fist fight on stage.

And if you want to know if it's got a bias towards one member or other, check who the executive producers are of the documentary.

Yeah, that's always an important thing with musical documentaries.

Yeah, yeah.

On this day in 1848, in a message to Congress, President James Polk confirms that large amounts of gold have been discovered in California, starting the California Gold Rush on this day in 1848.

The AFL-CIO is the result of a merger

this day in 1955 between the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

And let's see what's on the national day calendar from one Parker Olson.

Well, unlike the burrs, I am wearing blue pants today because it's Blue Jeans Day.

We're holding onto that gray pants thing.

I

just saw a picture.

It's very odd looking.

It is very odd looking.

It's like the equipment manager lost half the bags, you know?

Oh, only the bags with the shirts arrived.

All

right.

Are these the pants?

Yeah,

yeah.

That's the ticket.

So today is National Blue Jeans

Day.

Yes, it is.

As you mentioned earlier, it is also Walt Disney Day.

And it is National Ninja Day.

National Ninja Day.

Yes.

And every 10-year-old boy is so excited.

Oh, yeah.

They're all over that.

They're all wanting to wear their their ninja costume to school today.

Can totally see that.

Greg, were you ever a

ninja?

No, I was a Spider-Man.

Oh.

That was my thing.

I like dressing up as Spider-Man as a little kid.

So there's your national day calendar for it today.

Still ahead, we've got our Week in Review panel with former U.S.

Attorney Jim Santel, journalists Mark Jacob and Jennifer Schulze.

In our eight o'clock hour, Dr. Kristen Lyrely will be here.

Mike Clemens will join us with sports.

We might ask him about the powder blue uniforms, the tops only the gray pants.

It is a scandal of epic proportions rocking Wisconsin on this Friday morning.

I'm Pac Rightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Nice to have you back on this Friday morning.

It's December 5th.

I'm Pat Cright, Lewin Chippewa Falls Parker Olson and Madison Gregg Bach joining us from Meradial Park in Racine.

You get to hear him more as part of Matt and Air on Air.

Weekday mornings from 9 to 11.

Well,

a limited time only.

This is a limited time offer to listen to Jane and Greg together.

Six more episodes.

This is a yeah.

This is this is a rough time.

You've got my my old co anchor Judy Clark, legend here in Eau Claire.

Today is her final day broadcasting.

And the next Friday will be Jane Mattener.

These two women wrapping up just amazing careers.

Just almost a century of broadcast experience between them and all of it good.

Yeah, I just

actually got a friend suggestion on for that hurt friending me, but like a request

for Judy Clark and her picture is like her from looks like the 70s or 80s and it

looks really cool.

Yes.

Yep.

I should also say, well, let's see if this is one of those.

Maybe I shouldn't have started this because I can't explain it properly on radio.

But there's Christmas greetings that would be done at the TV station every year because, you know, you got time to fill in the commercial breaks.

And so you go from each person and they do a little something funny.

And Judy's thing, one year, when her two boys were really little, she found a dress kind of, basically it looked like a Christmas tree.

And she had her two little boys putting decorations on the tree.

And she said something about, you know, next year, I'm going to get a real tree.

Well, people loved it so much that that Christmas tree dress, she was making jokes about it for 25 years now.

That's

awesome.

And so in her last Christmas greeting here, she was talking about hanging it up as in a career and of course as in the dress.

And so the retirement party is coming up and I'm not going to cry.

Can I cry?

There's dust in your eye.

It's going to be dust in my eye because nobody deserves better retirements than Judy Clark and Jane Matten there.

So yeah.

Agreed.

Agreed.

Get to wish them well.

And Jane's

probably listening to this right now, so she's like, shut

up, Pat.

She probably is.

Before we get to any entertainment news here, Greg, I know the laughing tap for the longest time was looking for a new home.

Yes.

You found it.

And it'll be now.

you're sprucing it up, shall we say?

Correct.

We are sprucing up.

We have found a new location.

It is located in the historic Watts building on Jefferson in Milwaukee around the Cathedral Square area.

So if you know Cathedral Square in Milwaukee, it's right there in the famous Watts building, beautiful, beautiful architecture on that building.

And we are in the construction phase and we don't have an open date yet.

And we're not, you know, we're not saying that right now, but the workers are in the room building walls and tearing out carpet and

making things happen that I could never do.

I would just ruin everything.

But if you want to be part of the fun and you would like to possibly give to the campaign, we have a GoFundMe going on.

You can go to laughingtap.com.

Click on the link.

Go right to the top of the page.

It's right there.

Give what you can if you can.

If you can't, I understand.

Times are tough.

I'm not going to force the issue.

All I would ask is that you share it maybe on social media and let people know about it because this is a local business run by local artists trying to do goodbye.

community and try to contribute versus trying to come in

and take all

your money.

So laughingtap.com for more information.

All right, sounds great.

Parker, what are you looking at for entertainment news?

What am I looking

at for entertainment news, Pat?

I

am looking

at George Foreman, an auction.

for his gold medal from the

night selling

him his boxing gloves.

Wait, is this a cryogenics thing too?

Yes, his head is in the box.

No, no, no, no.

There's an auction for his 1968 gold medal that he won.

I think there's like a day and a half or so left on

the auction.

Right now, it's only at $6,500 at the top bid.

So achievable.

Yeah.

Maybe

what

we're gonna do is gonna get 30 friends to get together And then we'll just send it around the country and everyone can have in their house for a week

and a

half

Yeah, no you won that in Mexico City when he was 19 years old so that would that would that'll fetch a pretty penny No doubt there.

All right.

What else you got?

News that I saw this morning when I got up Netflix is buying Warner Bros studio and streaming

Warner Bros.

I like that such a modern touch.

Hey man Warner Bros

Wait, they

actually

that's the they accepted the offer.

I I don't know if it's quite accepted yet, but it is very very

it must be the the story came in overnight It was posted that Netflix will acquire Warner Brothers for 83 billion dollars and so It will see the streamer Netflix acquire Warner studio

HBO, HBO Max, and access to intellectual property that includes DC Comics, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones.

Get this by the co-CEO of Netflix, Ted Serendos.

Our mission has always been to entertain the world.

I feel like I need an echo effect.

Our mission has always been to entertain the world!

Oh, that was great, you guys.

By combining Warner Brothers' incredible library of shows from timeless classics like Casablanca and Citizen Kane to modern fact favorites like Harry Potter and Friends, we'll be able to do that even better.

But again, for...

$83 billion.

My question to you, Greg, is when's the first price hike from Netflix and how bad will it be?

I mean, this is, this is not, I'm sorry, but this isn't good.

It's not good.

No, it's, we talk about this on the show all the time, the anti-competitive stuff.

Again, it's not a monopoly, but when you're shrinking the amount of competitors,

yeah, it's

not good.

And

you're making it so that no one can actually start anything either when the competition is worth.

hundreds of billions of dollars.

I'm not going to say you're going, you know what I want to do is I want to create this thing.

Cause it's like, I will get nowhere.

And will it be HB, will it be HBO as a standalone service?

Or will it all just be on Netflix?

And yeah, will it be 50 bucks a month?

Yes, I think it will at some point in the not too distant future.

And people will go, if only there was some alternative, you know, like, like cable or something, or

a newspaper

or a newspaper or a comic book for Parker, we can finally introduce them to the Archies.

Yeah.

Sure.

That's all that's a whole episode.

Greg Bach, thank you so much for kicking off the weekend with us.

Yeah, you guys have a great weekend.

All right, you as well.

Coming up in the seven o'clock hour here, of course, we will have our weekend review panel.

But we will also have our 12 days of community kindness will continue at 745.

And right after the news, we will have the latest keyword in our grown up gift list text to win contest.

So get that civic media app.

and get set to Texas Award, I am going to give you right after the news for your chance to win a daily prize and grand prizes as well.

Welcome to our mornings powered by Up North News.

I'm Pat Critello and this is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Gritlow, powered by Up North News.

Now, from our Lake Wissota studio, here's the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Gritlow.

706.

Nice to have you back here up north.

It's a Friday morning.

It's December 5th, 2025.

We, of course, have our Week in Review panel that will be joining us in just a bit.

That would be former U.S.

Attorney Jim Santel, journalist Jennifer Schulze and Mark Jacob, Parker Olson producing things down in Madison.

Next hour, we've got Dr. Kristen Lyrely and Mike Clemens helping us out with sports.

But first, it being this time of the day during our grown up gift list text to win contest, it's time to share a keyword with you that you can text in using the Civic Media app.

So there's chances all throughout the day.

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7 0 8 on the dot right now.

So let us bring in our panel as always on this Friday morning.

Jim Santel, Mark Jacob, Jennifer Schulze.

Hello everybody.

Good morning.

Good morning.

I'm starting, I'm feeling more and more like Peter Marshall on the old Hollywood Squares.

I just want to go, hello stars.

And

they'll go,

hi Peter.

I'm real, I'm reaching way back for some of these references.

But

as you

are.

Fall into block, right?

Exactly.

The one thing missing here, if we had another panelist, can you see that

Jonas

Pezzito in the center of the screen

right there?

You know?

You can totally see that.

All right, we could wax nostalgic about game shows all day, but we do have a business to attend to.

Not the least of which, Jim, maybe I'm misunderstanding because I've only read the story once, but if I read the story correctly.

then once again the US Supreme Court has engaged in political activism using something that's supposed to be for emergency cases and instead had going in a very shadowy

political direction when it comes to those rigged maps in Texas.

And again, this is not a permanent ruling, but it's still a very damaging ruling.

Tell folks about what Texas did and what the Supreme Court justices

did.

Right.

Back in November, which is just a few weeks ago, we had a three judge panel out of Texas finding that the new lines that were drawn there in Texas, these five new districts we've been talking about, that they accomplished a racial

Jerry Mander, basically disenfranchising people of color, saying this is outrageous and directing that there be new lines drawn.

Well, what happens, of course, is Greg Abbott and basically the president as well.

Do what they always do.

As you're indicating, Pat, they run directly to the Supreme Court, which they can do.

The Supreme Court, you may recall, through a fellow named Sam Alito, exercised his emergency authority, suspended that.

And now, as of yesterday,

have entered yet another sort of preliminary stay on all this, but you're absolutely right.

This is another invocation.

Here we go again of the shadow docket.

And basically the Supreme Court, majority of the Supreme Court said that the lower court had improperly inserted itself into an active

primary campaign, causing much confusion, upsetting the delicate federal-state balance.

Texas likely to succeed on the merits of its claim that these drawing, new drawings of lines there are proper, and so has restored, if you will.

Those five districts, a majority are Republican.

Significantly, once again, we've got a concurrence written by Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, 17-page dissent.

by Elena Kagan and the others.

And all this comes just days before December 8th deadline for candidates to run in Texas.

And we're back in it again.

There's all

kinds of analogies, Mark, that we could go with on this.

It's something like somebody is stabbing you, and you're going to a court saying, this person's trying to kill me, and that person says, no, I'm not.

And it's the court, can you make them stop stabbing me while we determine if they're trying to kill me or not?

And the Supreme Court's going, well, we'll get around to determining if he's trying to kill you.

But in the meantime, the stabbing can continue.

This gerrymandered map.

gets to be locked in place while they decide whether it's a rigged map or not, that is turning the judicial system we used to know on its head.

Right, and it's establishing the facts on the ground, and you know, somewhere down the road we'll decide what actually is justice in this country, but right now we're gonna let the Republicans steal five seats.

So, I mean, I'm sorry, I just don't think this spin course will legitimate body anymore.

I feel like that they have

They have made so many bad rulings and they think of the immunity thing last year was just horrendous for them to decide that the president of the United States is above the law.

And so, I mean, I don't know how we get it back.

I think we get it back maybe with elections and adding just justices to the Supreme Court, because otherwise these guys are just going to rule bad things over and over again to kind of thwart.

democracy and justice.

And Jennifer Schulze, you took this a step further and took a look at the Tennessee special congressional election this week.

And the headline was that, well, the Republicans won, but they won very, very narrowly.

But you, you expanded the point further to go, well, they shouldn't have been able to win, but they did their own gerrymandering in Nashville and Tennessee.

Right.

Two cycles ago, the Republicans in Tennessee took the city of Nashville and cut it up into a pizza, basically, where there had been one Democratic congressman who'd been there for 20 years in a sea of blue, right?

Here's Nashville and here's the rest of Tennessee.

The Republican legislature there took it and,

you

know, I don't know, just went like Wolverine through

through Nashville and so created all of these funny looking districts and so that a Democrat could not win, could not win.

I mean that was the goal, could not win and has not since.

Republicans have had each of those districts in that funny shape thing and frankly the fact that Afton Ben did as well as she did I think is

is

a

huge thing for everybody.

That means that a lot of Republicans came out and voted for her.

And you can see Republicans are very, very nervous about what's ahead.

And Mark, you made the point that again, John Roberts looks like such a nice guy.

And he

said

all the he said all the right moderate things during this confirmation hearing and since that time.

And again, the number of people saying I told you so may not be very large.

But they are being very loud right now because he is who we thought he was.

Yeah, I mean, again, you know, he was not as radically right as, you know, Scalia and Alito and like that.

But I mean, I do think that a lot of people thought.

that the Supreme Court would be this kind of moderating influence on politics in in this country and you know would would roll back if the left got too far and roll back if the right got too far but but really they just Roberts especially has I mean the rulings that he's made since these three Trump people got uh got on have been just outrageous you know and and I'm sorry

You know, Trump should be in prison right now.

He should not be president.

And so he's named one third of the justices of the Supreme Court.

I just can't take it seriously.

And now it's time for true confessions with Jim Santel, because Jim, I honestly don't know your view on this, whether you're about to say, yeah, I actually thought he might be kind of moderate, and I'm really disappointed at where he's gone, or this is your moment to go, I have always known this is what this guy was going to be like.

So where are you on Chief Justice John Roberts?

You know, at the time that he was in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, remember, he very notorious, he said, oh, all I do, all I do is call balls and strikes.

Remember that?

Yeah.

back a lot of us looking at I was a little bit in that camp and what look back he's always written some memorandums in his past that support the notion of a very strong executive branch and as Marcus just said

and Jennifer as well, it has blossomed wildly.

So it's always been out there in a trunk.

And I would simply comment that in addition to this grant of basically supreme authority to the presidency in July 1 of 2024, recognize that John Roberts has also led the PAC when it comes to the evisceration of voting rights.

Probably the Supreme Court sometime soon is going to put the final blow with John Roberts pen on it to the voting rights act of 1964 He has never liked it.

He's always said we've moved beyond that and now we've got to do something That's that's yeah, we got to be concerned about voting but not that and the other big issue of course many others Is religion if you allege that your faith tells you that something is wrong and the government is not giving you money Not permitting you to do something by virtue of the establishment clause.

You know who wins

Religion does and that has also been at the forefront of his of his practice here We saw a little bit of a chink in that recently when he decided that a rastafarian probably did not have the right to go ahead and pursue his claims, but there are other areas where somewhat predictable and Again, it is blossomed in ways that I don't think anybody would have predicted 20 years ago.

No, it just feels like that

that part of the judicial branch as well as of course the legislative branch have completely abdicated any checks and balances of abdicated oversight to the point Mark where I feel like the word monarchists it's not that they just want to capitulate and well whatever Trump wants to do and James talks about you know a strong executive branch well strong to the point of you're basically supporting a monarchy.

Yeah, and it's at the monarchy.

That's white supremacists, too Yeah, that's this thing is so you know alarming is in you know as Jim pointed out in the vote voting rights act Roberts has said as he's systematically stripped the power of it

And the last blow might fall very soon.

He keeps on saying that, well, we don't need it anymore because we're beyond, we're post-racial.

You know, we don't need it

anymore.

Read

the comment sections.

And he's saying that at the same time that Donald Trump is calling Somali immigrants garbage.

And not just because they're immigrants, because they're black immigrants.

And so, I mean, no person.

with a brain would think that racism is completely solved in this country.

But the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court seems to think so.

All right, well, let's switch gears to something lighter before we have to pause here.

And then we'll get into more of the week's headlines.

But Mark, you tip me off that FIFA, the governing body of World Soccer, is introducing its own peace prize.

Step aside, Nobel committee.

There's now going to be the FIFA peace prize.

Is that going to be announced as early as today?

Are we taking bets on who might win it?

Yeah, they're doing that.

In DC, it's an event that the FIFA president and Trump are doing, where they're announcing the draw for the World Cup, which is going to take place in the US and Mexico and Canada.

And they just invented a FIFA peace prize.

And everyone thinks that Trump's going to get it.

And FIFA, historically, is a very corrupt organization.

So

it's not a big shocker that they would want to give a peace prize to the guy who keeps on blowing up boats in the Caribbean.

Jennifer,

are you on DraftKings right now?

Are you picking

bets on

whether Trump gets this?

I wonder if they'll make the presentation at the Donald Trump Institute of Peace, the building that he renamed this week, even though the government doesn't own it.

He took it and put his name on it.

He put his own name on the Institute of Peace, which I got to tip

my... He is so hungry for that novel.

I got to

tip my cap to California Governor Gavin Newsom put out a parody.

of the KFC Institute of Veganism.

It's on that same building.

It's just a great spoof.

The weekend review panel continues here in just a little bit.

Plenty of headlines to go through, but again, our keyword for the text-to-win contest is CARD, C-A-R-D.

I'm Pat Krightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Nice to have you back just about 7.23 now.

I'm Pat Rightlow here on the Civic Media Radio Network.

CARD.

C-A-R-D as in Christmas card.

CARD is the keyword to text in before 8 o'clock on the Civic Media app as part of the Grown Up Gift List contest.

I have not mentioned sports-wise that the Badger Women's Volleyball team, they were victorious last night in the opening round of the NCAA national women's college volleyball tournament.

They swept Eastern Illinois.

They advanced to the second round, which also will be at the UW Field House.

They will host North Carolina tonight at seven.

The Badger Volleyball team making it to the second round of the NCAA tournament for the 13th consecutive season.

There's also Badger Hockey that you'll be able to hear on our station in Wisconsin Rapids coming up at 530 Badgers versus Notre Dame and then we've got Badger Men's Basketball

versus Marquette tomorrow.

Coverage begins at one on several civic media stations at the civicmedia.us to learn more.

All right, let's bring our panel back in here.

Former U.S.

Attorney Jim Santel, journalist Jennifer Schulze and Mark Jacob.

And let's get into the the difficult question that I talked to Keva Keel about in our last hour.

It is not easy to talk about our own government deciding to blow up

shipwreck survivors.

And that is exactly what happened.

Jim, I'll end with you to talk about the law of it.

But Jennifer, I have to start first, like I said, to key last hour.

What is especially upsetting to me is that, you know, you you will

The members of Congress saw this video, saw the boat get blown up, saw two guys clinging to the shipwreck, and you have Republican members of Congress who saw the follow-up strike, and have somehow concluded that that was justified because they were still in a position to be enemy combatants of some sort.

It is a, it is, I don't even know what it is, that actual members of Congress would see this and come to that conclusion in the name of politics.

well the one who made the most noise about it is Tom Cotton and You know, he's never said anything that would go against Donald Trump.

So frankly, I'm not surprised That he said what he said, you know, don't it Tom Cotton does not tell the truth But yes, the the entire thing is staggering and apparently it was 41 minutes from the first strike to the second strike and

For some reason, some people who were involved with that thought that these two people desperately clinging to a piece of wood in the ocean were still somehow enemy combatants and getting ready to launch another attack on the United States, so they decided to kill them in cold blood.

It's just a remarkable thing.

that's assuming it was an attack anyway, because again, there's

been

no due press, no due process, Mark Jacob.

We don't really know what was there.

So I mean, in very mob boss style, this is kill the witnesses.

And Mark, that is no surprise for you coming from Tom Cotton.

Yeah, well, I used to live in Arkansas.

And so, you know, I hear about Tom Cotton a lot from my friends.

And

He's just a terrible guy.

You know two two years ago in my stop presses newsletter.

I wrote a whole column about 15 ways Tom Cotton is awful and two of them are that he That he called slavery a necessary evil, you know, he was like defending well.

We needed to do that.

Yeah, you're right and he also

This just blew me away.

Barack Obama named a new ambassador to the Bahamas.

And Cotton said specifically that he was going to block her nomination being confirmed just to get it at Obama because he knew that the woman was a friend of Obama's.

And so for 1,647 days, there was no ambassador to Bahamas.

Finally, the appointee died of leukemia without being confirmed by the US Senate.

And this is the kind of person Tom Cotton is.

He is a terrible person.

From a legal standpoint, Jim Santel, again, most anybody that you talk to with an independent view of things sees the law as pretty clear.

Yeah, there's not a lot of rational dispute about this.

Whatever your your political persuasion may be.

So many factual problems as well.

We know that again, whether it's cocaine or fentanyl, either one of those comes predominantly from Venezuela.

That's number one.

But even putting that to one side, going back to fundamental notions here, even an unarmed speedboat, which these are, even as carrying cocaine or fentanyl, is not a warship.

And none of those 11 people aboard initially, and not merely the two who were survivors, also the nine others were fighting anyone.

Again, as Jennifer just outlined, the time period on this is damning.

And the notion that anyone in a military setting

can pursue people who are basically are no longer combatants, but for the virtue of the fact that they're holding on for their lives, are somehow engaged with us in a military operation and killing them, that is completely contrary to the rules of law.

completely contrary to the rules of engagement.

It is, it harkens back again to things like Nile massacre and other other instances where we're in military situations.

We have done things that are contrary to the basic fundamental tenets of armed conflict.

This is not a close question.

And no, and what and then to put a real exclamation point on it, Jennifer, is

If it is a boat full of drugs, I don't care if the boat is loaded with drugs, it is a fraction of what the ex-president of Honduras brought into this country, who the president pardoned this week, Jennifer.

Arguably, the former president of Honduras is one of the biggest drug traffickers in recent memory, right?

I mean, it's responsible for bringing so much...

Bad stuff into the country and he walked out of a US prison this week.

So the

My head spins.

I do not understand, you know, there's no logic here, clearly.

No,

because again, and I know I say it a lot, but I wouldn't say it if it weren't for that conviction of no pun intended.

Joe Biden or Barack Obama releasing a drug kingpin like that, it would lead, it would still be the lead story days later.

And this was just another day in Trump world.

We will continue with our Week in Review panel coming up in just a bit.

Again, a reminder.

Card, C-A-R-D, is our keyword in our text-to-win contest for our grown-up gift list.

Learn more about the prizes and the rules over at CivicMedia.us.

I'm Pat Critello from Up North News.

We'll be back after the Midwest Farm Report here on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Coming up in less than 10 minutes, we will continue our 12 days of community kindness, putting a spotlight on another organization doing good things in the hometowns all around the Civic Media radio network.

But first a reminder that the key word for this hour is CARD.