You're listening to Civic Media.
You can tune into any of our live shows on any radio station across the state with the Civic Media app.
Find us in your phone's app store and listen anytime, anywhere.
Hey, good morning.
Welcome back.
7.06 on a Monday morning.
It is December 15th, 2025, 10 days till Christmas.
Get those gifts.
That's her question of the day.
What's your best idea for a last-minute Christmas gift?
855-75 Civic is the phone number 855-752-4842.
Dr. Kristen Lyrely is here, as is Selena Heller from Up North News.
Parker Olson producing things down in Madison, studio A2, and Dr. Lyrely has her hand up.
Kristen.
Siruji's.
I always keep extra Siruji's candy on hand because it's amazing and it's the perfect gift.
What kind of candy?
It's out of Depeer, long standing.
They do the meltaways, the mint meltaways.
So, so good.
Those
good.
Okay.
Well, there you go.
All right.
Well, our question of the day has been answered.
So thanks everybody.
We were talking about the Hamilton soundtrack in our last segment here.
Alicia says she had it basically on repeat for months and wants to thank us because now she's singing Hamilton
that's, that's what we do here.
Yep.
A little news about this fine radio show coming up in just a few minutes.
Also later this hour, we'll talk to former Republican Congressman Reed Ribble about health care.
Selena Heller tells us about stories that she's following for Up North News and a little Christmas music.
along as well.
So let's get the, let's get the good and bad from the sports world out of the way.
You've got the Badger Women going to the final four in volleyball.
After ups, not, well, yeah, I guess it's an upset.
They were a three seed and Texas was the one seed.
So yeah, an upset and four at home for Texas, by the way, a four set win.
And so the Badger Women move on to Kansas City to hopefully play for a national title next weekend here.
They'll be in the national semifinal come Thursday.
And then there's the Packers.
That was not pleasant.
It felt like somebody let the air out of our tires.
That's exactly how it felt.
Yeah.
You notice none of us are in our green and gold victory Monday.
We're over here.
It's Micah Parsons.
Yep.
Got your got your coffee mug.
Always the coffee mug.
Yep.
Micah Parsons goes down with perhaps a torn ACL may be done for the year.
Did you see him though?
Did you see him talking?
He's like, I'm OK.
I'm okay.
He was like trying to will himself into not being hurt.
Yeah.
If only it were that easy, you know.
Now, Christian Watson, it looked like it was going to be a really bad injury and it might not be.
You know, people feared it was a shoulder or collarbone.
Apparently it's a chest.
I don't know if it's a bruise or what it is, but
perhaps he will be able to come back.
But of course, Christian Watson, you know, basically is an orchid for how delicate he can be and prone to injuries.
So hopefully we get him back.
But boy, losing Parsons, that one just that one just hurts.
But and it makes it that much.
But it makes my life easier.
And really, that's what counts here is because I was really
stress that I have some, some holiday dinner plans for Saturday night.
And it's going to be a great dinner.
Good friends.
We're looking forward to it.
And then there's like, Oh, wait, the Packers Bears, they play Saturday night.
It's a weird night.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, it'll still be on, but I'm no longer worried.
Like, am I going to have to like excuse myself occasionally and go look at the TV or something?
No, just keep up the score updates.
You know,
those two teams, though, the way that they battle.
I mean, I am a Packer fan, but I love watching those two teams together because they just they make some magic.
So it's gonna be good.
Yeah.
Rob says good morning from Tigerton, cloudy and nine degrees.
He said it was a relaxing weekend.
And at the Packer game was like being sideswiped by a semi truck.
Rob would know
Rob
would know.
Yes.
Hopefully Rob is healing nicely.
Alicia is very happy on YouTube about Navy beating army and the annual football game there.
And so the buck's lost by 45 points to the Brooklyn Nets.
They next play Thursday night hosting Toronto.
All right, Selena Heller covers all kinds of news for us at Up North News that you can find on our website, upnorthnewswi.com or on social media.
And so Selena, what you've been working on here is something out of Dunn County, right?
It's grassroots organizing Western, Wisconsin, you know, and Bill Hogsett, the organizing director has been on before talking with you.
So the members have been going all over to county board meetings.
So they cover Polk, St.
Croix, just all several counties in this part of the state, Pierce, Polk, Dunn.
So the members have been kind of telling the county boards as they're making
budgets, how the big beautiful bill is going to affect them and all the trickle-downs.
It translates into hunger, untreated illness, worsening crisis care, just kind of more burdens.
Let's listen to
Bill Hock.
said that happens when there's conversations around things like SNAP and Medicaid, these social safety net programs that regular people need, like our neighbors, our grandparents, kids.
There's always this question about do these people actually deserve these services to help put food on the table or help them see a doctor if they need to.
But when it comes to giving a trillion dollars of tax benefits to the most wealthy people in our country, which is what this bill did in order alongside also cutting our social safety net, you don't hear the same concerns from people about whether these billionaires who have
you know, want to buy another mansion or another space shuttle, do they deserve that?
And so I think there's a double standard for the things that our neighbors need to actually survive day to day versus the most wealthy people in our country to have a few more toys and mansions and space rockets.
It feels wrong to me.
Well, yeah, I mean, it always has felt like a bit of a double standard that again, if you're a billionaire, you have no problem getting access to power.
And now you have no problem acquiring power because of practically unlimited corporate money in political campaigns.
And Kristen, as Selena was reporting from there, I mean, it's always a case of basically the upper crust convincing
enough of the middle class that it's the people making less money than them that are the moochers and are the real problem.
Do these people really deserve it?
Do these people really deserve to eat healthy food that will actually make them healthier?
Do these people deserve access to health care so that they can see a doctor when something is going on and get diagnosed early instead of later, which
could mean a much more serious diagnosis and disruption in their family and their community.
Yeah, they do because they're your friends and they're your neighbors.
And we all deserve to be able to live a healthier, more satisfying life.
So disappointing.
But as you said, Selena, there's also the whole notion of the big bloated boondoggle, as I like to call it.
I mean, yeah, it was a big national debate in Washington.
but it does have very local impact.
So let's listen to more of Bill Hogg-Seth from Grassroots Organizing of Western Wisconsin.
And one of the things we heard with every sheriff was the stress that is placed on their programs because they have to respond to mental health crisis calls.
And there are almost no beds to
that are available in our area for people who are in crisis.
So what has to happen is that the sheriff's deputies have to drive all the way across the state to the Winnebago facility and it consumes a couple deputies for an entire day just to do that transportation.
So it was an interesting finding when we looked into this that a bill like HR1 that
cuts all these social safety net programs could have these ripple effects that then put more people into mental health crisis.
That's going to be more of a strain on the sheriff's deputies.
That's going to have these, you know, these these kinds of effects that are really unintended and unanticipated but are real.
Most real HR one is another name for the for the big mega bill that was debated in Congress earlier this year.
Selena did Bill find a receptive audience?
I know we talked about like a county run nursing homes and the director happened to be at one of the meetings in Dunn County.
And she kind of agreed with all of that, you know, with the cuts to Medicaid and things like that.
So and then the county administrators kind of agreed to and kind of raised those alarms that all these strains are going to be putting on them.
They're going to have listening sessions coming up in starting in January.
So if you keep your ears and eyes out for those things and then you can come.
and kind of share some thoughts and get some insight there too.
And Kristen, it'll be really important to note for folks starting next year.
after, I'm sorry, starting in 2027, after the midterm elections, that a lot of this stuff is going to kick in, a lot of these cuts and things like that.
And that was on purpose to kind of shield Republicans from paying any price next year, which is why so many people like Bill Hogseth are out there saying, no, no, no, you need to know now what is coming.
This has passed.
It will come at this point.
I think they crafted it so that the actual impact wouldn't hit until after the midterms.
But the truth of the matter is hospital systems and other businesses are going to have to plan for what happens.
in 2027.
So we're going to start feeling those effects.
We're already feeling some of them, but throughout 2026.
So as these things are happening to you, pay attention and hold your legislators accountable.
They are supposed to be serving the people.
That's us.
And if we don't tell them that we are dissatisfied and that they are not doing their job, they're just going to keep doing what they're doing.
And by the way, the midterms are in November.
Yeah, yeah, they will just keep cutting cutting cutting away here.
You actually had a post over the weekend on your social media sites about all the OBGYN openings just in Wisconsin.
That was it's not even all of them.
It's just from one of the locums companies So there are doctors like me who just fill in in certain places and there are these places that are chronically open Medford is one that was open literally for over a decade where they just couldn't get somebody to Establish there and they eventually ended up closing their OBGYN services
This is a crisis.
It's getting worse, not better.
And it's because we're creating conditions in this state, especially where health care providers don't want to practice here.
Political interference, the legislative environment, it's just too complicated and we're not training enough health care providers.
There are solutions.
There are solutions that politicians can implement here if they have the courage to do it.
I think that's the other important point is that the solutions to these problems are not inevitable.
These consequences are not inevitable.
It just takes people who actually want to work a little harder at supporting, you know, the middle class at supporting the rural economy, rather than just making decisions for their for their for their
donors or for their particular income bracket.
Again, Selena Heller has stories that you can follow over at UpNorthNewsWI.com and through social media and in our newsletter as well.
Coming up, we will be talking to former Republican Congressman Reed Ribble about healthcare and what as a former Republican Congressman, he thinks of the current healthcare debate in the nation's capital where Republicans seem to not have any kind of alternative.
to the Affordable Care Act.
Does it have to be that way?
We'll ask Reed Ribble coming up in just a bit over 15 minutes.
But first little news about this show as I promised, this will be our final week of new shows here in the early morning.
Our final show will be coming up this Friday.
then there will be a couple of weeks of highlight shows that look back on the year.
There's been no lack of highlights thanks to some amazing guests.
And then 2026 start with a clean slate here at Civic Media and we can't wait to see what they're going to be doing next for their 2026 chapter here.
But as for me, it'll be going back to Up North News full time.
It's been great to split time between these two wonderful entities, but 2026 is going to be a little crazy.
And so I'll be doing
We'll be doing more over there and we'll keep you informed on our website and social media as far as what my own next chapter is for 2026.
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 Critello, this is the Civic Media Radio
Network.
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.
Although I have a tough time watching the TV version.
Let's
the uncensored version is way more fun to listen to, especially when Clark Griswold has his little meltdown.
You can't share that on the radio as much as you'd like to, you know?
Let's see, so that's an example of a happy one.
I think Parker's got an example of one of the songs that just should not be a song anymore, and yet,
Paul McCartney is out there singing it all the damn time.
There it is.
the instrumentals are fine, but when you add the vocals, that's what makes it bad.
I'm just trying to drill down here.
Now it's just like your typical 80s Casio keyboard, you know, it's just kind of
in the
background,
know.
But
there are a few others.
I've never been a fan of Happy Christmas from John Lennon.
Step into Christmas from Elton John, I think is just.
You're hitting like all the Beatles and the Beatles.
Oh, come on, man.
All right.
So
what about your Christmas song?
You're going to beat up that one, too.
Yoko has a Christmas song.
No, but if she did, oh, if she did, I would
totally.
Absolutely.
Anyway, this is all to say that if you ask the general population, some of their least favorite Christmas songs, Selena, you've got you've got a nominee out there.
shoes.
is awful.
Yes.
That's
year.
Oh,
schlocky.
Oh, yeah.
All right.
What else is
Kristen's song.
All right, here's your occasional reminder.
Dr. Lyrely can do the Chipmunks voice and is now going to share a little bit of Christmas musical joy with you.
Christmas, Christmas, time is near, time.
Look at
Parker's
Parker was not expecting it to be that good.
I totally
She actually
had a lung implant, a little helium implant in there, so occasionally she can bring the helium up when she needs to.
But no, Selena, the big one is...
hippopotamus for Christmas.
It's my least favorite, yeah.
Is your least favorite too?
Of course it is.
And Emery's how old now?
us a little Emory Christmas
Tunage.
If memory serves, this was basically when you dragged your kid to the VFW and made her sing karaoke in front of an entire crowd, right?
Oh.
birthday party at the Elks Club,
facts
songs.
This is how the game roll got its start.
I'm just saying.
It could be the same.
So you're saying if Emery ever turns up missing, your first place to go look is the karaoke bars?
from the tree.
Does it, Selena?
Okay, so Roger's got a couple of examples here from Steven's point on Facebook.
I discovered out of my mom's music collection, the Statler Brothers Christmas Card album from 1978.
Oh, my gosh.
Oh, Roger, did she order that one through the mail?
Like my mom ordered all her Statler Brothers
albums.
It's a KTeller Columbia house.
But then Roger goes on to say, I used to love grandma got run over by a reindeer.
Now I can't.
stand it.
it.
Santa baby.
And then where are we on baby?
It's cold outside.
Rapey.
Oh, gosh, well, it's a rapey sign.
Okay.
I
didn't have
view of that, Pat.
No, it is very much a
a song that has not aged particularly well.
John Legend version where he's kind of altered the lyrics a little bit, but almost to the point of mocking the song at this point.
So give a listen for that one as well.
But yeah, Santa Baby.
the original version again from the 1960s it's like okay you know materialism and all that then Madonna did a remake in the 1980s and they still play that Madonna one now and then I mean talk about mailing it in I mean absolutely no effort into singing that one what I hate when that one comes on
That was from the beginning of the whole compilation thing.
That was the, do they know it's Christmas?
It was like released for, I think raising money for AIDS or something, for it to fight HIV and AIDS.
So they didn't have all of these Christmas songs back then.
So it was the origin of
it.
The funny thing is some of them, yes, really did sound slapped together.
There was a haul in a notes one, Jingle Bell Rock, which
was
goofy.
And yet,
On that same album was Springsteen, was
Bruce
Springsteen's song.
His version, Santa Claus is coming to town, instant classic.
And that is the difference between a Springsteen and a Madonna, right there is the effort that you put into it.
All right, well, for part of the joy of the season, we've brought you the things that bring us the least joy when it comes
to
songs.
So, Kristen, Selena, thank you both very much, appreciate it.
Thank you, friend.
Thank you, Friday.
Have a
good day.
Yep, I'll see you on Friday.
And coming up next, we'll talk to former Republican Congressman Reed Ribble about health care.
I'm Pat Crightlow.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
735.
Nice to have you back.
It's a Monday morning, December 15th.
I'm Pat Crite.
We're here in Chippewa Falls.
Dr. Kristen Lierly continuing with us and our guest former Congressman Reed Ribble in the end just a moment.
First a reminder you can stay up to date on our unabashedly Wisconsin news by signing up for our newsletter head to upnorthnewswi.com and click subscribe up in the top banner you'll get our weekday newsletters full of Wisconsin features and our Sunday morning newsletter with a more of a political bent to it including our question of the week our question of the week yesterday is the property tax
really the right way to be paying for schools in Wisconsin, versus say, you know, the state income tax, and plenty of answers coming in already to see that question first.
Sign up at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
All right, let's bring into the conversation Congressman, former Congressman Reed Ribble, who represented Northeast Wisconsin from 2011 to 2017.
Congressman, good morning.
How are you?
Hey, I'm doing okay.
How are you?
Very good.
Nice to have you along here.
You're familiar with Dr. Lirely and...
I am.
Hi.
Yeah, so good to be here with you.
I couldn't.
I was going to leave.
But when Pat said you were going to be here and we were going to talk about health care, you couldn't get rid of me.
Yeah,
that's good.
That's fine.
Well, Reed, this all comes down to a very
simple question to start off with now for 15 years we've been hearing Republicans talk down the Affordable Care Act and I'm not going to make the case that it's perfect but the question has always been for 15 years where is the full on comprehensive Republican plan that is the alternative to the Affordable Care Act again you were in Congress as you're watching Congress right now do you do you feel like that's just something they they can't do or something they don't want to do
Well, yeah, I think that's a really good question, Pat.
I think nobody really wants to deal with it because the problem is bigger than life in many cases.
And let's face it, the number one thing that the American government spends money on is health care.
And you have a circumstance where roughly 51% to 52% of the US population today is on some form of, quote unquote, government assisted or single payer system when you think in terms of the number of people on Medicare, Medicaid.
Veterans Health Bureau of Indian Affairs Health and the federal prison system,
have a very large percentage of the population in some form of single-payer health care.
And those single-payer rates are below what the typical private care rates are.
And so it forces private care rates up.
to offset the loss on the single payer side.
And so Republicans have kind of put themselves in a box canyon by not offering alternatives until...
what appears to be this last minute, but apparently it's coming in two weeks.
I'm not exactly
sure.
It's always coming in two weeks.
Former Congressman Reed Ribble is with us and you were actually among the first voices when Donald Trump first started running for president in 2015 to point out that he is either a single payer advocate and or has such shifting positions on health care that it's hard to know where he really stands.
I get the impression all these years late
that that is still a way to describe him, that either he has no real position or if you put a gun to his head he'd say that he would go with single payer.
Is that part of the impediment?
Is a president who just does not know where he stands on
this?
President Trump has never particularly been tethered to any principle.
And so you've got a problem where he doesn't really understand what's going on.
It's very difficult for someone of his affluence to understand what the typical American worker experiences when they go to purchase either health care or health insurance.
And that's part of the problem that we have is in this lexicon.
We keep confusing the availability of affordable health insurance as being equivalent
to the availability of affordable health care.
And they're not the same thing or even the availability of health care.
You talk to somebody in northern Wisconsin or really in any part of rural Wisconsin where they might not even have a doctor in their county or any medical system in their county, forcing them to purchase a health insurance plan when there are no doctors available seems a little bit foolish to them.
And so you've got to address the supply side of this in any type of discussion.
And we don't hear much of that conversation going on, which is very frustrating for sure.
Kristen?
I think about my kids who are Gen Z people.
And I know you have lots of these folks in your life to read and how so many of them
don't have the kind of jobs where they have health insurance with their jobs.
They're gig workers.
They're patching things together.
And they're young, so many of them can get away with it, but many can't.
And the way that even the exchange is set up is so prohibitive.
Maybe you can afford your health insurance, but can you actually afford to go to the doctor because you've got an $8,000 deductible?
So people are putting off their care.
They are afraid to get care because they can't afford
for it.
And down the road, we will see in these individuals' lives, things being diagnosed too late to stop the long-term effects of cancer and heart disease and all of these chronic illnesses that cause perpetual problems for these people and their communities.
Yeah, I don't think there's any any doubt of that and that that's going on and the fact that as we move into a more of a tech society where a lot of workers are now Working as 1099 employees working from their home They're now burdened with having to to go on the exchanges and find a plan that works for them But the plans on the exchanges are really what I would liken to prepayment plans as opposed to to true health insurance plans and
Listen, there are problems with Obamacare and that they need to be addressed.
And what actually is the best solution is what this arm wrestling is going on in Congress right now.
But when we talk about the COVID subsidy add-on that was put in place during COVID, it's not like this has been some
New thing.
I mean Congress has known this deadline was coming up a year ago and they could have easily have addressed this before and so they've like I said, they put themselves in a box canyon because if they
If they vote to kill that subsidy, they're going to basically force a lot of people out of the health insurance marketplace, which is actually a bad thing to have happen.
If they extend the subsidies, they basically are admitting, well, Obamacare itself has got a problem because prices have continued to inflate.
And that's the box cannon they're in.
But left and right, Democrat and Republicans.
have been unwilling to sit down together and say what is the best path forward get true experts in the room to talk about it and figure out what the next step is and that's what's so frustrating about how congress is functioning right now.
Yeah we're talking to former congressman Reed Ribble and so to kind of tie a bow on this is where we go next and whether it's tinkering with the Affordable Care Act on a bipartisan basis or if some whole new
paradigm, pardon the buzzword, is developed instead.
Do you have a sense for where we might be, say, five years from now on this or where we should be?
Yeah, I think five years from now, maybe too short of a window, but I think 10 years from now, it's very likely that we'll be in some form of single payer system.
I mean, it's going to be very difficult to wind this clock backwards.
And I think the part of the savvy of President Obama was he recognized this back in 2008 or 2009.
I think he himself would be surprised that it's taken as long as it has, but we're now up against a difficult window.
I think what Congress will do ultimately is extend the subsidies for a year.
They will then arm wrestle with some type of free market reforms to the health insurance industry and come up with a step toward.
something that's different than what we're currently having.
But until they're willing to add more nurses, more doctors, more nurse practitioners, more PAs to the system and increase supply, break down the monopoly system that's in the big health care systems are going to be difficult to fix.
Yeah, you totally get that there are so many moving pieces in this.
And that really the one wrong move is to do nothing.
And that appears to be what we're stuck with at the moment, former Congressman Reed Ribble, representing the eighth district from 2011 to 2017.
It was a pleasure hearing your perspective on this.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
It's good to be with you.
Good to see y'all.
Thanks.
Good
to see
you.
Thank you as well.
Appreciate seeing you.
We'll talk to you on Friday and we'll get now going with our 12 days of community kindness where we have been taking the spirit of Giving Tuesday and making it last well into the holiday season.
We are joined now by Ashley Adams from Horse Sense.
She's the director of advancement there.
Ashley, good morning.
How are
you?
Good morning.
I'm great.
Thank you for.
Absolutely.
Tell us more about horse sense and what horse sense is all about.
Yeah, so horse sense is an inclusive equine assisted service program.
We're located just outside of lacrosse, Wisconsin, and we've been serving our community for a little over 30 years.
We implement horses in all of our programming, so we have three main programs that people probably know us for.
Our first one is adaptive horseback riding and horsemanship.
This is us just teaching our riders how to ride, but also how to have fun.
and how to take care of our horses.
Our second one is our Horse Sense for Heroes program and that is dedicated solely to veterans and their family members or active duty.
This program is unique in that it's also completely free of charge and that's something that has been important to us since its inception in about 2012.
And then our third program is our hoof and heart connections, which is an equine assisted learning program that works with youth on the ground to work on those life skills and social emotional skills that they might not be able to achieve in a traditional classroom.
I've heard about this in the Chippewa Valley and certainly other places as well.
What is it about horses and ridership that makes them so therapeutic for folks?
yeah horses are they're so unique in the sense that they are incredibly intuitive they can say a lot without saying anything at all without using any words um so they're very honest in their feedback so like as an instructor it's really easy to say you know
I see Elsa is a little, you know, maybe a little unsure today.
You know, she's showing me that she maybe has some questions like, how was your day?
Like, what happened with your day?
And then that just kind of transforms into this, you know, beautiful conversation about how they're doing and how really at the end of the day, it's not me as an instructor, it's Elsa, you know, teaching them this moment.
Ashley Adams is with us from HorseSense.
You can learn more at horsesensewi.org, where you have a holiday match campaign going on right now.
Tell us about that.
Yes.
So we are very, very fortunate that we had two donors that were able to achieve this $25,000 match.
One was a $10,000 match from an anonymous donor.
And then we got a $15,000 match from the Delicey Foundation, who has been a supporter of our program.
So every dollar donated this holiday.
season gets almost tripled by the end of the month, which is huge for us.
So the main reason why we do this holiday match campaign is because we do not operate in the winter time.
It's kind of like our summer break with the Wisconsin winters.
It's too unpredictable.
So this is our time to kind of just relax and get a solid foundation for 2026.
So this is our time to kind of reach out to the community, you know, we want to make sure that our mission speaks to people that they want to give us their dollars to be able to support.
future programming for next year.
And so the donations that people give do what exactly?
Yeah, so it goes to kind of everything.
So it goes to our horse care, horses are expensive.
It helps with our rider scholarships to make it affordable for people to be here.
And then it can go to any other operational costs, whether that be, you know, to fix up the barn a little bit, other, you know,
Hose is broken.
We need to fix the hose like it's all those small little things that make such a difference
Ashley Adams here from horse sense and there's also a sponsor a horse opportunity
in
case you need something a little bit more tangible
Yes, so our sponsor horse campaign just kind of started this year, and it's a great way for businesses or individuals that, again, this kind of speaks to them.
They want to be able to, you know, take care of a horse throughout the year.
And it's a $2,500 full sponsorship.
You're able to help us care for their failure.
That builds hate, anything like that.
And then, you know, you get your picture in the barn.
We make sure that we recognize you in all different ways.
It's a great opportunity to support a program while also supporting one of our staff, which are the horses.
HorseSense.wi.org is the web address.
Again, horsesensewi.org.
Ashley Adams has been with us, the Director of Advancement for HorseSense, joining us as part of our 12 Days of Community Kindness.
Ashley, thank you so much for telling us all about your wonderful work that you do.
Awesome, thank you.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
Thank you again.
All right, have a great day.
Coming up in our eight o'clock hour, we will be talking.
We're talking to John Henkes from Wisconsin Eye about the network going dark for lack of financial resources.
That and more coming up, I'm Pat Crite,
well from Up North News, this is the Civic Media Radio Network.
It's time to talk about the Packers.
Oh, no.
Oh, no.
Yeah.
It's a mash unit.
Jimmy Koska, Civic Media Sports Directors with us here.
I mean, there's no other way to put it.
It's just it's walking wounded all the way.
I'm just wondering which grandpa that the Packers left to call in off the couch to come play.
Oh, my gosh.
And Phillip
Rivers won their game, didn't he?
Yes.
Holy cow.
Yeah.
If we got it, we got it.
Red Farms over here going my chance.
It's coming.
I can sense
it do it again.
We need we need receivers We need now we need a new star on defense with Micah Parsons going down Christian Watson went down The Micah Parsons one though.
I mean that was that was a good punch Jimmy
I think the entire fan base and I think just in the NFL in general You just felt the oxygen go out of the room soon as you see him pull up on a non-contact very
Very classic ACL type injury that you saw.
I've seen it, obviously, coaching football.
And all of us have watched football our whole lives.
You can pretty much tell that that was one of those where you're like, yeah, he's done.
And that's tough because the Packers going into this game, we're being billed as a potential Super Bowl contender, something that
They had been kind of built that early in the year as well before they had some offensive struggles midseason.
But now not only do you go out with your top defender, but you lose your top receiver.
You lose your right tackle.
You lose another couple of players throughout the game.
And after seeing the injury list midweek last week, and I was like 20 guys, I'm just wondering if they don't just print the whole roster this week and say, yeah, everybody's
hurt.
With a short week coming up, and now you have to take on the Chicago Bears in a game that will determine who will be second.
who might be on the outside looking into the playoff picture after this
Saturday.
That's true.
I mean, when when they beat the Bears before we took great.
Great joy in the Bears being knocked from a number two seed in the NFC all the way down to a number seven seed Well, guess what happened yesterday now the Bears are the number two seed and the Packers are the number seven and like you said in in danger of Missing it entirely here.
I mean it makes Saturday night's game against the Bears that much more Important or depending on your point of view that much more dread coming into this thing
Yeah, I think certainly that this Saturday's game as much as the first game was hyped.
This is
I mean, this is for the division.
I mean, no question about it.
It's for the division.
The Packers still have games against the Ravens and Vikings to go, but you got to get this one to win the division.
If you lose this game, the division's almost out of reach at that point with that weird half game with the tie.
So it's, you know, this game really, it comes down to that.
And it's a short week.
Again, both teams have the short week, but the Packers are coming into this now, having to rally after all the injuries.
And I mean, everything, they said all the right things after the game, but
You know, I don't know how you replace Micah Parsons, man.
That's tough.
It is.
It is just a gut punch.
Jimmy Cusco, Civic Media Sports Director is with us.
If you missed it off the top, the final score, the Packers lose in Denver 34 to 26.
And Micah Parsons and Christian Watson weren't the only injuries.
You had Josh Wiley and Zach Tom, both going down as well.
I mean, each time you thought, okay.
Well, okay, we can we can get past this.
Okay, we can.
And then you see Christian Watson go down and boy, a lot of folks thought, you know, maybe it's a collarbone or shoulder thing, and he's really lost.
And I mean, now, hopefully, we're just talking about a bad bruise on his chest or something.
Yeah, and it's not just them.
I mean, they've got the nagging injuries.
Josh Jacobs, who
Wasn't even sure they were going to play him.
I mean, he had the great touchdown catch, of course, but he did.
But he
also got stuffed a lot here.
And on top of that, you saw other guys come up, you know, they get banged up on plays.
I don't know.
I just they had other issues before all the injuries.
And now all of that stuff is magnified.
It's pretty apparent that they can't cover anybody on the outside and, you know, watching Denver carve them up.
I just.
I don't know, man.
I mean, this is a tough week.
I think that Saturday a win would be massive.
It would be an immediate correction.
Put the Packers back on track, but a loss on Saturday, it really puts the stress on the last couple of weeks and whether or not the Packers make it.
That's where it really becomes dicey.
About this time of year, if the Packers are losing out, there are people who will say, well, we've always got Yanis in the Bucks.
Well, the Bucks ain't got you thanks to injury and they got blown out by the Brooklyn Nets 127 to 82 a 45 point route that ties the Nets franchise record for beating teams.
They Bucks will host Toronto on Thursday night because we don't have to worry about that pesky NBA Cup anymore.
So we
got everybody that started for the Bucks last night wasn't on the team a couple of years ago.
It was I looked at the starting lineup.
I'm like, you can't even recognize these guys.
None of these guys were on the championship team.
None of these guys were even here two seasons ago.
I just I don't I don't know what we do with the Bucks.
I know that every week is going to be we'll hear or won't see with Yanis.
We're going to go through that.
But, you know, the supporting cast can't even be competitive in an NBA game.
I don't know what to think about this.
I mean, it's more bad vibes.
We ought to find some positive back.
Give me some
positive.
Let's go back to football.
How about that UW River Falls football team
playing
in the cold, huh?
I talked to Matt Walker yesterday.
I texted him and I said, dude, this is amazing.
You're on this big run.
And he's like, yeah, I think we can do it.
I think we can do it.
He's hyped.
They get the host this week in a semifinal.
First time they've ever made it this far.
A win would put them, they win Saturday in the afternoon game.
They would put them in the Stag Bowl, which is on January 4th.
But River Falls, the cold, the snowstorms, the good defenses they face, nothing has slowed down the top gun offense.
And they put up the points in the yards and that win on Saturday.
That is fantastic.
and then you've got the Badger women's volleyball team also going to the Final Four with a big win over One Seed, Texas in the regional final yesterday.
They look good.
Wisconsin, Kentucky in the Final Four, wherever
we ever heard that before.
Yeah,
right.
It'll be Wisconsin, Kentucky on Thursday for the winner goes to the national championship game.
And the national title game would be on Sunday.
So the match, I should say, on Sunday.
So everything else fails.
Just look to Badgers volleyball to provide the spark.
And it's sports life for us here in Wisconsin.
Oh, gosh.
We will take it without a doubt.
Jimmy Koska, Civic Media Sports Director.
Thank you, Jimmy.
Appreciate it very much.
Appreciate you guys.
Talk to you Wednesday.
All right.
Boy, this has just been.
This has been one and and we'll just take it from here and see where we go coming up next in our next hour John Hankus the CEO and president of Wisconsin I will be here that is basically Wisconsin's version of C-span giving unfiltered unvarnished coverage of the state legislature the assembly the Senate the committees the news conferences other presentations and Yet it is dark this morning because of a lack of financial resources.
So we'll talk to
to John Hankus about how that got to be the case.
But we will start out the hour with our Civic Media friends, John and Gordy, right after the news.
I'm Pat Critello from Up North News.
Follow us over at upnorthnewswi.com.
Sign up for our newsletters while you're there as well.
This is the Civic Media Radio Network.
The national news cycle never stops, but it can be hard to find news about your local community.
Civic Media is dedicated to providing quality local and state news coverage across Wisconsin.
With the Civic Media app, you can get notifications about local stories that matter to you and your community.
Find the free Civic Media app in your phone's app store and choose notifications from the menu to tell us what kind of news you want to hear about.
