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From the Civic Media World Headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, it's the Todd Alba Show.
And now, pursuing truth wherever it may lead, here's your host, Todd Alba.
across Wisconsin on the Civic Media Radio Network.
and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app.
Good afternoon, everybody.
Todd Albaugh along Mr. Aaron Zommers as our engineer producer on the board.
It is six minutes past the hour of two o'clock on this Monday back to work, August 4th, 2025.
It is a great day to be Wisconsinite.
Glad to have you along after a nice weekend, a little smoky, a little breathing, maybe a little sore throat because of all the Wild West fires smoke in the area.
But otherwise, pretty darn nice.
Zommers, glad to have you along back at the hell.
Many thanks to Parker Olson, who filled in last Friday.
We missed you.
How was your weekend?
Great.
Yeah.
I thank you, Parker, very much for filling in.
I had a doctor's appointment that it ended up taking me longer than I thought.
It went a little longer, and then I had to pick some stuff up from the pharmacy on the way back, but I caught them at their lunch break.
It was just a series, a comedy of errors.
Those things always happen.
But then I
went to the Mile of Music in Appleton and that made up for it because it was a lot of fun.
Well, very good.
Glad you had a little R&R time.
Spent Saturday.
Here's the deal.
I did not have a lot of plans, and I've been on the road a lot for the show.
We love doing that.
But it turns out, Somers, when you live alone, nobody does the laundry for you or helps out.
Very true.
So there was some laundry I had to do, and that's why I thought, well, I should do it.
But then my parents, my godson's, Curtin Floresy, called, and they're my kayak companions.
And I said, you know what?
grab life by the horns and enjoy it.
So we ended up doing about a four hour kayak paddle down the lower Wisconsin River put in just below the dam.
that prayer to sack and then went all the way down to about Maison 80.
And it was a lovely, lovely afternoon, no better thing to kind of relax yourself, to get out there on the lower Wisconsin on the kayak.
So that was a lot of fun.
And then I got to, did my house chores yesterday, took a little walk down here by, by Lake Bendota.
So all in all, not too bad at all.
Gonna be another, just talking to our producer, Luke Mathers.
I guess Director of Operations is his correct title, but he is giving us to go ahead.
Wednesday, we're gonna be up in La Crosse for the show covering the Fusion Voting event up there.
Excellent.
And so that should be a good opportunity to talk about Fusion Voting on Wednesday from La Crosse.
And then on Friday, we're doing the show from Shono.
So it's gonna be a little bit on the road here this week as well.
Hope you're with us all week long for our new shows.
Coming up at hour two today,
What's worse are fun and silliness, neighborhood covenants, or no restrictions.
We'll talk about that a little bit.
I have feelings on this, by the way.
Coming up at the bottom of this hour from Wisconsin Watch, very important story from reporter Janelle Mella on Measles.
and vaccination rates in Wisconsin.
There have been over the weekend, timely, timely indeed.
Unfortunately, as new cases of measles being reported in Wisconsin, and Janelle will be here with reporting from Wisconsin Watch on that very important subject.
But right now, I want to kick off the program with a friend of mine, a mentor of mine, joining us from the Northwoods of Wisconsin.
He is the former Wisconsin State Senate Majority Leader, longtime Senator Democrat representing the popular area.
And Northern Wisconsin, a place like Bayfield, Ashland, Superior.
The great North Woods, Bob Jouk joins us via stream yard.
Senator Jouk, a pleasure to have you along.
Thanks for being here.
Well, what a pleasure it is to see you as well, Todd, and couldn't help but feel like I should have been with you on the kayak going down the lower Wisconsin.
Well, I mean, you're right.
There's so many beautiful places to go and enjoy this wonderful state that we live in.
I applaud the effort through your program and others to try to remind people of what's good and great about Wisconsin.
It's the people who live here and what they do to make a difference in helping others.
Well, thank you very much.
And for those that might know, my former boss, Dale Schultz, Republican, worked very closely with Senator Jalkin and the late great Senator Tim Cullen.
for the majority leaders from different parties working together on issues like mining and forestry and redistricting.
But that afforded me the opportunity, the privilege, the honor to hang out with Senator Jelkin.
And for those that don't know, Bob is quite the conservationist historian.
And I know one of the things you're really passionate about is Native American culture, not just in northern Wisconsin, but in particular, you taught me so much about the rice beds and the conservation areas up there.
the lower Wisconsin River just literally flows into some of those same topics.
I know those are things that are near and dear to your heart.
Well, you know, there's a number of tribes in northern Wisconsin that have played a very important part in personally in my life.
My mother lived in Locke to Flambeau, one of the five Chippewa tribes in the north.
And so it's really become personal to me in my heart.
about their traditions and their culture and their communal way of living and working together with their children to try to preserve the traditions and strengthen tribal life.
So it's been a long and difficult time, but in many ways it's getting much better.
They're really promoting education and healthcare.
These tribes have wonderful healthcare facilities and they have a growing population of young people who are going on to college and getting degrees and coming back into the tribal communities to try to spread that notion onto others and make a difference in their communities.
And so I feel really fortunate to have represented Redcliffe and
at Bad River and St.
Croix, La Coudre and Lac de Flambeau in my time.
It was a wonderful, wonderful experience.
Difficult at times, especially with tribal spearfishing and the controversies that took Wisconsin and boat landings back to Mississippi days.
But I think we've come a long way.
Yeah, absolutely, and certainly thank you for all your work in making, helping make progress up there in the Northwoods and for the state of Wisconsin.
Senator Jock is our guest.
I asked you to come on in pretty short notice, so I appreciate you.
Making time for us and it was in light of of what happened towards the end of last week We covered this a little bit on Friday and then over the weekend for those that might not have been look at the news cycle Maybe spending more time on on the Wisconsin River or other places in Wisconsin and nothing wrong with that by the way, but some pretty disturbing news coming out the state of Texas and
I want you to help us sort through this center job from Wisconsin perspective for those that haven't heard Governor of Texas Greg Abbott is called a special session of the Texas Legislature
for the distinct purpose of redrawing the congressional maps redistricting of sorts, although it has precipitated directly for President Donald Trump, who did not deny it over the weekend.
In fact, when asked by reporters, is it true President Trump that you're trying to get more seats out of Texas?
He cut them off and he said, yeah, five seats.
So Donald Trump is telling Governor Abbott, Republican in Texas, redraw the maps to create
five more Republican-leading districts, because of course, Trump and the MAGA leadership in DC are definitely afraid that in the midterm elections next year, that Democrats could take back control of the House.
So Abbott is willing to capitulate, to genuflect politically to Trump on this.
And so now over the weekend, breaking yesterday into today, many of the Democrats in the Texas legislature have left Texas for Illinois
in order for there not to be a quorum so that the remaining legislature, mostly Republicans, cannot pass this or vote on it.
Senator Jouk, you were a key part of the Wisconsin legislature in the state Senate back in 2011 in this state when Governor Scott Walker...
was pushing through, and most Republicans, my former boss Dale Schultz, the lone exception in the Senate, trying to pass through Act 10, which would have broken bargaining rights and ultimately did, unfortunately, for public workers.
Democrats in the state and the state Senate, yourself included, went to the beautiful Clock Tower Hotel in Rockford to put the pressure on.
Talk to us a little bit about, from your perspective, what's happening in Texas and how that relates to what you all did back in 2011 in Wisconsin.
Well, in some ways, they're very similar.
The proposals were being driven not for any public benefit, but rather completely to create a political environment that was better for the Republicans to minimize democratic voice and the public's understanding of what they were creating.
In many ways, this is even more dramatic than what Walker was doing.
Because what's happening in Texas is really un-American.
It is undemocratic by every stretch of the word.
And it could have the impact of affecting the decisions directly that impacted people throughout the country.
If the Republicans were successful.
and enacting that legislation, keeping the house by five seats that they somehow have gerrymandered to their preference.
It's also nationalized because it's forcing Democratic governors in states controlled by Democrats to say, we'll have to do the same thing.
And it whittles down this whole notion
It elevates gerrymandering to its highest point in which I'm not sure what the way back is to a sense of something that was normal.
Clearly, reapportionment was something I really didn't like as a lawmaker.
I had a fairly democratic district, but by its nature.
But in that conversation was always about people strengthening their own political might.
not getting the right kind of representation that gave people power to their word in the legislative process.
And so this has got really far reaching impact on our democracy, on our nation's decisions that would be made in the next election.
And I'm very worried about the direction that we're going.
Senator Jelke, Senator Bob Jelke, a Democrat from Poplar, former Senate Majority Leader, is joining us via StreamYard.
Senator, about a minute here before our first break.
We'll come back and we'll talk about where this leaves us in terms of redistricting and the Democrats after we come back.
But quickly, give us this perspective on what's happening now with the Democrats leaving the Texas Legislature for Illinois.
Like you folks did in 2011 Democrats leaving Wisconsin it not only does it stop kind of technically the proceedings, but it brings awareness to the situation
Absolutely it mobiles people throughout this country.
I I've run into people Every almost every week when I'm traveling outside, Wisconsin
where people want to talk about it.
They just see the decision we made as some sort of an heroic gesture.
And I didn't think any of us saw it that way.
But it's how the public viewed it in a sense that people were standing up for things that mattered to people elsewhere.
And it really pushed the button of understanding and action, I think.
I'd also.
Our friend the late great Senate Majority Leader Tim Cullen I think you had to do something in your district that night So you were a little late joining us for dinner and we walked into a restaurant bar place I think it was in superior and there were I don't know there were a dozen maybe 15 people at the bar and I just kind of a goofy thing I said ladies and gentlemen States Senator Tim Cullen and the place went up for grabs I mean even even in superior they knew exactly what you all as Democrats had done and he always loved that story because
made him look like a rock star and my former boss Dale shows not so much and and so Tim always loved that.
Well it's it's amazing that Governor Wallace's daughter
one time and she said, you're my hero.
State
Senator Bob Junk is part of what makes Wisconsin great.
Well, come on back, talk more with him after this on the situation in Texas and the path ahead for Democrats.
Should they now get involved in partisan redistricting as well as a counter?
Come back after this.
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Pursuing truth, wherever it may lead and having fun doing it.
Welcome back to the Tonal Ball Show on the Civic Media Radio Network.
It is Monday, August 4th, 2025, 22 minutes now, past the hour of two o'clock.
Zomber is on the board.
Glad to have you along with us.
From the text line on the Civic Media app, listening on WLCX, a great station in La Crosse.
Penny asks, do you have more information on the Fusion voting event on Wednesday in La Crosse?
Time and place, please.
We're going to be there doing our show on Wednesday in La Crosse.
Yes, we do.
I'll go through all of that after the bottom of the hour before we bring on the Wisconsin Watch people.
But very quickly, it's at 1230 this Wednesday at the Black River Beach Neighborhood Center.
There is no fee for attendance, but registration is required.
You can
Visit LeaderEthics, all one word, LeaderEthics.us and we'll give you all that information.
Uh, after the bottom of the hour, there's also a streaming option as well.
So we'll go through that.
But right now I want to finish up our great conversation with our friend, former Wisconsin state Senate Majority Leader Bob Jelke, Democrat, a poplar who joins us from his home in Northern Wisconsin via StreamYard, talking about what's happening in Texas, where the Democrats and most of them, the Texas legislature have gone to Illinois to stop a quorum in the, in the Texas legislature.
by stopping Governor Greg Abbott's power grab, my word, at the behest of Donald Trump to redraw the congressional map lines with the directive from Trump, which he confirmed this weekend.
He wants five more Republican-leading seats for a five-seat pickup in Texas, potentially, depending upon how the elections go.
And Senator Joe's perspective as a Democrat at the time in 2011, the state Senate,
who left Wisconsin to help stop Act 10 and Governor Walker's power grab here to break public unions, Senator Jelke helped me with my memory because, you know, there are parts of that era that I kind of block out.
But as I recall, by leaving the state, you were in fact able to stop the vote from happening for a while, two weeks, a month, whatever it was, three weeks, ultimately, as the memory serves,
Scott Scott Fitzgerald ended up getting some kind of Well shaky legal advice they split the bill and so they basically passed it because without you guys Because they said there was no money involved and we all know what happened after that But you were able to stop it for a while and as we said before the break more importantly Perhaps you brought awareness that lives to this day
Well hundreds of thousands of people throughout, Wisconsin became
a vocal representation of the decision we made because they saw the outrage.
Not only did we leave the state on a Friday morning to create awareness in the state, to give the public a chance to better understand what is being proposed, but it was.
also to slow the process down.
They wanted to do the legislative process in five days and literally not giving the public who was showing up in Madison in speaker after speaker 24 hours a day, they wanted to deny them the opportunity to have any voice.
Yeah, that's a great point.
I'm really glad you brought that up because I remember when Governor Walker and his entourage walked into the closed Senate Republican
conference and announced this, and people looked at each other like, holy hell, the Republican senators didn't even know this.
He never ran on it, Walker didn't answer your app.
That's a really important point that you gave the public time to digest this.
At one time, there were 100,000 people on the lawn of the state Capitol.
and number continued to grow.
And you talked about the Republican caucus.
You were as a staff member involved in some of those behind the scenes caucus discussions.
Know that many of your members, Republican caucus members were not in support of this.
Didn't like
the
idea.
Didn't want it to happen.
And so not only were we trying to give the public the opportunity to better understand it, but to begin to put some
pressure on those Republican members to say, wait a minute, let's find some middle ground.
And there was plenty of middle ground to be found on the whole question of negotiations, timelines, and other things with labor unions.
The labor unions were willing to come to the table, admitted it publicly, were willing to make many concessions.
And so
There was no argument about what the issue was.
The issue, however, the hidden issue was that the governor simply wanted to destroy unions, take away their voice.
and deny the public the opportunity to better understand.
Another great point because there was room for opportunity to come together.
Senator Dan Campanquil across the time was almost there.
My former boss would have stopped it, but essentially he was bought out by the big money during his congressional race over there.
And that's a whole other story.
We'll have to have you back sometime and talk about that.
I want to give you the opportunity, Senator, two minutes left here, a little under that.
What should Democrats, in your opinion, do now in nationally these different states who
control state legislatures, should they participate in this, I'm going to call it partisan gerrymandering to stop basically perhaps a takeover of the government by MAGA that you can't get back?
I hate to hear myself saying this, but I don't think they have any choice at this moment.
I mean, what you
Your ultimate goal for Democrats is to stop the Texas legislature from enacting.
I don't think we're going to be able to do that.
So therefore, you have to try to create a momentum in other states to create more democratic opportunities.
And the ultimate winner will be in November of next year.
If the Democrats do enough of it, it seems to me that
that that will be the ultimate judge of whether this was a necessary idea, not necessarily a good idea.
Senator Jalk, a former Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader, I cannot tell you how much it means to me to have you on the show today, have your perspective.
It's a unique one.
It's an important one.
We'd love to have you back again.
Thank you so much for being here today.
Thank you very much.
Our pleasure.
Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Jelke, come on back.
We'll talk a little measles and vaccinations.
On the other side, with Wisconsin Watch, it's an important topic that you do not want to miss in.
It's the Todd Law Bowl Show for Monday on the Civic Media.
ready to pursuing truth wherever it may lead and having fun doing it.
Welcome back to the title ball show on the Civic Media Network.
It is 35 minutes now past the hour of two o'clock on Monday, August 4th, Zabers on the board.
Many thanks to former State Senator Bob Jouk for coming on today, talking about that situation in Texas.
Important indeed.
Spent quite a bit of time last week when it was broke here on this program.
Continue to follow it because ultimately,
This could be one of those things where if this is allowed to go through in Texas, Democrats could counter either in Illinois and or places like California.
And it really can come down to the fight for democracy.
So a very important issue, which we will continue to follow.
Speaking of democracy, talked about it there before the news update with Pam farm ag update with Pam Yankee and Midwest Farm Report.
Wednesday on this program, we're going to be back on the road up in beautiful La Crosse for the leader in ethics event on fusion voting called reviving a forgotten fix for a broken system.
On the docket is Lee Roche, the executive director of leader ethics and a plaintiff in the legal suit to reestablish the legality of fusion voting based upon the conditions on the Wisconsin state constitution.
Also Dave Mahoney, former
Sheriff Democrat of Dane County my former boss one of them Dale Schultz former Republican State Senator of Richland Center Christine Andrews the executive director of United, Wisconsin a rusty Cunningham former publisher executive editor of lacrosse Tribune and the River Valley News will moderate the program.
It is open to the public.
It's a one-hour program
Starting at 12 30 in the afternoon this Wednesday August 6th the location is the Black River Beach Neighborhood Center on Rose Street lacrosse There's no fee for attendance, but registration is required to register go online Simply go to leader ethics all one word leader ethics dot
U.S.
Leaderethics.us.
Zomers has all that information.
We'll put it in the show notes as well.
So you have that.
We'll be talking more about it as we get closer to Wednesday.
Right now, 37 past the hour of two.
We turn our attention to another great organization here.
Always love it when they stop by Wisconsin Watch.
You can find all this, all their work at WisconsinWatch.org.
That's WisconsinWatch.org.
One of their fine reporters, Janelle Mella, is here in the studio with me.
Good afternoon, Janelle.
How are you?
Good afternoon.
I'm good.
How are you?
I'm doing well.
Thank you.
Thanks for coming in.
Before we get into this very important reporting on measles, the first time anybody stops by, we always like to ask the question.
Tell us a little bit about yourself, where you grew up, and how you got into journalism.
Yeah, sure.
So I'm originally from a really small town in Illinois, Gilbert's Illinois, if you've ever heard of it.
Yeah, and I'm currently a journalism student at Northwestern University.
I am going into my junior year upcoming in the fall.
But yeah, my journalism journey started pretty young.
Not direct journalism, but I've always had a strong passion for storytelling and specifically telling the stories of others.
So as I got older,
kind of combine that with a passion to pursue a career that told the stories of other people and made people feel heard and seen as that's what I believe journalism should be.
Yeah, fast forward to college at Northwestern.
I'm studying journalism and I write for the school paper, The Daily Northwestern, if you've ever heard of it.
Yeah.
And yeah, since then I now work for Wisconsin Watch, which for those of you who don't know it, it's a non-profit, non-partisan investigative news outlet based in Madison, but we cover issues across the state.
Yeah, I'm interning there this summer as a Scripps Howard Fund intern.
And I mainly cover rural issues around the
State of Wisconsin.
And yeah, my most recent focus has been on the measles story that about to talk about today.
Well, glad you're here.
And, you know, I'm obviously a little partial to the Wisconsin J School.
But I'm going to quickly add one of my four bosses, Scott Kluge, before he was a congressman, he was a longtime journalist as a graduate of J School at Northwestern.
And they do some really great work.
And was there a big story that
the Northwestern paper down there broke here.
Was it
a year ago or so?
What was that big story
that they had?
They got a
lot of press for it.
Over the summer, it was to do with the Northwestern football team.
That's it.
That's it.
Yeah.
And that was, as we have, we have people with badger hair all the daily card along.
I don't even like to say anymore, student newspaper.
You guys are journalists, full stop, because you're doing important work, breaking stories.
And I think that gives me a lot of hope for the future of this industry, people like you.
Yeah, absolutely.
I you know, I'm still kind of growing as a journalist and figuring out the industry myself But definitely student papers and Wisconsin watch definitely helps with that as
well.
Absolutely.
Well, happy to have you here.
Let's get right to this story The headline reads I would never wish it on anyone measles resurgence spurs memories of past toll in Wisconsin
Subheadline, decades after contracting measles during the pre-vaccination area, residents recall how infection disrupted their lives.
Measles is now returning to the U.S.
and nine infections were recently confirmed in a Conto County.
Unquote.
This is a great story.
It's a long-form story, which I love.
I would encourage all of our listeners, viewers to go to WisconsinWatch.org to read this.
I could tell you're a storyteller because you bring these stories of people to life.
Was that as you did your research for this story?
Was that your choice to tell this through the lens of people who would who had experienced this?
Yeah, so actually my editor Jim Milwitz he
kind of prompted the idea based on, we did a call out a while back for our readers to kind of just let us know about their perspectives on measles and anything they had to share.
And a lot of folks had kind of mentioned, Hey, I had this when I was much younger, like, I don't think people understand how terrible of a disease it was.
And so he kind of brought that to me and was like, it'd be kind of cool to, to kind of look more into this, reach out to some of these people.
And so yeah, as I began talking to more people and reaching out, that's kind of what I learned.
It was like,
the story was almost told through their voices.
And I didn't have to do a lot of, you know, the storytelling myself.
They each had a very unique story to share based on measles and their experience with it.
And so I kind of had that guide in my future reporting and, you know, doing more of the research into what that time was like and kind of what that means today.
Your story date lined as August 4th here over the weekend.
Even more reports of measles outbreaks across Wisconsin.
So certainly timely indeed.
What are the people you start with here is?
Somebody that I know really well Dorothy Thompson from my hometown Richland Center I know her for like 30 years through the campus mainly a great community person Done so much for the community, but tell us a little bit about Dorothy So I've known her for 30 years.
I did not know this about her until I read your story.
Tell us about
it.
Yeah Yeah, she was one of the first people that I had reached out to and she kind of gave it
that kind of little antidote at the beginning, like she would never wish on anyone.
She had an experience so terrible that it stuck with her for years after.
And that was kind of a big thing I learned with talking to people.
It was like, you know, many of these people are in their 70s and 60s now, but they remember such a, such a critical time when they were like five or six years old.
So Dorothy was one of those people.
And one of the, one of the things that should remain vivid in her mind was like being packed in ice.
And that was something like.
you know, I don't think I would see nowadays or see people, see people talk about that.
So listening to that and kind of just being like, wow, like I wasn't alive during this time.
I wouldn't know that, but like she's sharing that with me and I get to share it with other people.
So yeah, it was a really eye-opening experience to talk to people who just like this is how bad it was.
And like these were the treatments that don't exist anymore.
And what struck me.
hearing Dorothy's story through your reporting.
My mom lives in the same town, Richland Center.
She's a couple of years older than Dorothy, but this is an era when everybody wanted to be vaccinated pretty much.
My mom tells stories of, hey, after church in the small town, everybody went and stood in line in the hospital to get a polio vaccine or whatever it might be.
And Dorothea is one of those people that experienced this when many people her age haven't because of vaccines.
Yeah, and that's something we learned as well, just talking to people.
Some folks who had it were like when vaccines in general came out, like you were saying, people were very like.
very eager to get them just because after experiencing, you know, the toll that a lot of these diseases took on them.
And so, yeah, it's kind of shocking now not to see that.
We're speaking with Janelle Mella from Wisconsin Watch.
Her story is up online right now at WisconsinWatch.org.
Very important story, very interesting story on measles in the state of Wisconsin.
The history is told through the lens of several people who have lived through this.
One of the things in this story, Janelle, that again just struck me was some of the newspaper accounts of back in the day.
Here's one from August 14th, 19...
30 headline, 31,287 deaths in state last year, department says.
This is just incredible, the amount, this was the Appleton Post Crescent, also in the Journal Times of Racine from 1960, measles parties, peril to children.
But before we had vaccines, people would say, well, your kids got that.
I want my kid to get it so they get natural immunity, right?
Yeah, that was a big shocking part of my reporting was learning this phenomenon called measles parties.
And it was essentially where people, it was so common back then that people were getting measles that at one point doctors even recommended that people expose their children to the disease saying, hey, if you get it.
early on, then maybe you won't get the hard parts of it later on in getting over with now to have immunity.
But, you know, as time goes to show, measles parties didn't eradicate the disease, but yeah.
And also, again, through your story telling and this story at Wisconsin, watch one line here from your story.
Adore County resident Pam Goodlett recalled measles about from 1963 as a 13 year old.
She says, quote, I was ill and bedridden for weeks when I was finally able to get up.
I was a skeleton.
My pants couldn't stay up and my clothes hung on me.
End quote.
The report is really powerful because there's so many people that I think.
They look at this as a cold.
And I'm not here to diminish COVID because some people died.
Many people died of COVID.
But now, nowadays, people are like, oh, it's just like a bad cold.
This is nothing to pun intended, I guess, sneeze at.
This is deadly serious in some cases.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think what's even more dangerous about it is that it's a disease people haven't seen in so long.
So its resurgence kind of brings back almost some of that refreshing.
And we spoke to a lot of public health departments about that just about like, you know, since it's something many nurses may have not even been around during the time and now have to treat like, how are they preparing for that?
So it was nice to see that many of the public health departments have been preparing.
And now that it has hit Wisconsin as of this weekend that, you know,
There's some safety behind that.
One of the other things, the other story here of the person you interviewed, Peggy Haas, age 69, a registered nurse in Waukesha County, became a firm believer you write in vaccines after witnessing the damage measles could inflict.
And your reporting is one of your takeaways.
I don't want to overstate it.
You keep me honest.
But part of these people speaking out, is it to say, look,
You younger folks didn't live through this.
You don't understand the danger and put science before politics.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think.
Yeah, one of the one of the main things that I took away from it was like.
these are stories of people that actually happened and maybe stories that weren't all captured in newspapers of the time.
And because, you know, now it's years later, we can actually see some of those long-term effects that weren't visible in the past when people first contracted them.
So, yeah, it's kind of, it was going to be a way as like eye-opening for people who, yeah, like myself, who have no idea of that time besides reading newspapers, but it's nice to hear accounts of people who live today, but also lived back then to share their stories.
Just a couple of minutes left here.
You talked about vaccines being a turning point in public health.
What haven't I asked you that you think is important for our listeners to understand about this story and about the situation as measles, unfortunately, is back in Wisconsin?
Yeah, kind of a part of those call-outs we did.
A lot of people
had some uncertainty about whether they were vaccinated, whether they should get vaccinated and like whether they had measles as a child.
And I think a big takeaway we found was it's always better to be safe.
So to check in with health care providers and trusted doctors to know what next steps are and it's always safer than not to be safe.
Janelle Mella, thank you for Wisconsin Watch.
This story and more at WisconsinWatch.org.
Thank you for your reporting.
Great story.
Yeah, thank you.
Our pleasure.
Come on back.
Talk more about this on the other side.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website,
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Eight minutes before the hour of three o'clock.
Many thanks to great reporter Janelle Mella of WisconsinAwatch.org for being here to talk about this very, very important story on measles in Wisconsin.
Following up to that great interview and her telling us about this story at Wisconsin Watch.
What are the sub headlines in this story?
says how health officials are responding, says, but the virus is back with the U.S.
seeing more than four times as many infections in 2025 than all of 2024 in terms of measles.
And it has now been detected in Wisconsin.
In a count, in a Contel County, quote, all of the cases were exposed to a common source during out of state travel, unquote.
the State Health Department said in a statement over the weekend on Saturday.
They went on to say, quote, DHS in coordination with the Conto County Public Health is working to identify and notify people who may have been exposed to the measles virus.
At this time, no public points of exposure have been identified and the risk to the community remains low, unquote.
Story in Wisconsin Watch goes on to say Wisconsin is vulnerable to an outbreak due to its relatively low childhood vaccination rates.
It is just one of 15 states that allow vaccine exemptions for medical, religious, and personal belief reasons.
No Wisconsin County comes close to reaching the vaccination rate of 95% that is considered the benchmark.
for herd immunity protection.
Public health officials are bracing themselves to respond.
This is serious stuff, particularly for people with young children, particularly with people on immune diseases, particularly for the elderly.
And now it is here in Wisconsin.
Cross it over for a second in Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, by the way, it says, one case of measles was found through testing at the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene, while the other eight were identified through symptoms, according to a statement released on August 2nd.
So in this case in Oconto County, it appears over the weekend, it must have been a family or a group that went traveling outside of Wisconsin and then brought it back.
Because of HIPAA rules, and I know our friend Jane McNair and Greg Bach and McNair and air touched on this this morning as well.
Because of HIPAA rules, the law basically regarding medical rules, there's only so much they can say.
They can't say, well, it happened specifically to this family or this address.
But you wonder, right?
Did they fly to wherever they were and flew back?
Do they drive?
We don't know.
And that drives home the point why it is so important to have vaccinations up to date.
Because we don't know.
We don't know the person sitting next to us on the plane or sitting next to us in a crowded restaurant whether they've had their vaccinations or not.
So you have your vaccination to protect yourself.
And the really
scary part is that my former party has gone all in on the drinking of the Kool-Aid on this, on the right.
Robert Kennedy Jr., one of the biggest anti-vaccine people out there,
Even he's walked back some stuff and at the end of the day when questioned under In a Senate committee said well, I probably really not the person you should be taking advice from when it comes to vaccines Oh now you tell us.
Thanks.
I appreciate that Whoever you vote for for president at the top of the ticket for governor for whoever you vote for I Encourage you I beg you
Don't put political rhetoric before your kids and your family and your own health.
If you want to drink the Kool-Aid on tariffs and taxes or whatever, I mean, I think that's pretty bad in itself as well.
But what we're talking about here is life and death.
And many thanks to the people who had the courage to tell their stories, like my friend Dorothy Thompson of Richland Center.
and everybody else in this great story at WisconsinWatch.org and for Janelle Mella for her great reporting.
These folks like Dorothy Thompson are coming forward because they want to warn you because they want to let you know this is not political BS.
This is real.
People have died.
Many people died.
Thousands.
Tens of thousands and many people live through it barely So this is not a hoax This is not some quote-unquote woke propaganda or left wing.
Well, everyone characterizes this ain't that This is real So get your kids vaccinated Don't drink the Kool-Aid on this if you're on the right
Do the right thing by way of your kids, because God forbid come a day if you don't vaccinate them, where they're lying in the hospital bed on a ventilator, and then you get religion, figuratively and literally.
And you try to make a deal with God, please spare my child, I'll do anything.
I believe in the power of prayer, but I also believe that sometimes there are lessons to be learned and consequences to be realized by making bad choices on our own point.
Don't be part of that.
Vaccinate your kids.
Measles are real.
Great reporting by WisconsinWatch.org.
Come back with hour two after this.
What's worse?
Neighborhood covenants.
Luke's never heard of that word or no restrictions.
Come on back after this on the All Bull Show.
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