George For The Win! (Hour 1)

Good good morning and welcome welcome to Matt Nair on air.

Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach, Gavin Butenoff coming to you live from our home here at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us, call or text the number is the same at 855-752-4842.

You can also leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.

Coming up today, Shaly Pittman, Civic Media's news director going to be joining us after the 930 News.

Going to talk a little bit more about the data centers in Wisconsin.

One has just been rejected.

in Mount Pleasant, another one in Port Washington, getting some late pushback.

Yes.

So we'll have an update with Shaly Pittman, see where we are with that.

And it's kind of interesting that there are more data centers in Wisconsin, I think, than folks realize.

It's definitely, and we've talked about this before, it is definitely the new thing that's being pushed in this state.

And there's lobbying for it heavily.

I've heard it on the radio.

And they want to make Wisconsin a hub because of our land, our access to water.

It's water.

We are next to a, not just a great lake, a fantastic lake, but they want that.

And I, you know, we'll get more into this, but I'd probably say this, I personally don't have a problem with data centers as long as we are doing it responsibly, that get that does not take too much from.

our natural resources and from the people and doesn't sock them with the bill.

Well, there's that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Also, in hour number two, we're going to talk to Democrats Abroad.

This is an organization that has been on the show before.

Today, we're going to talk to the vice chair of Democrats Abroad.

What's their name?

His name is George King IV.

Oh, I love it.

I had to look at it like five times.

because I thought it was King George IV.

Originally, it's like, wow.

Talk to a child.

William and Kate's son is taking the airwaves early.

No, George King IV is the vice chair of Democrats Abroad.

We're going to talk to him after the 10 o'clock news.

I'm very curious what the view is from overseas as to what is going on here in the United States, and whether or not there are concerns from Democrats abroad about going forward.

There's certainly been a lot of discussion, you know, Republicans want to get rid of mail-in voting.

That would affect a whole bunch of people.

Americans who live overseas.

So we'll talk to George about that.

In hour number two, we will lighten it up for the last half an hour of the show.

Audio Sorbet after 10.30, where we take a breath.

Get away from the news.

Videos

you can watch.

for hours whether they're specific or if it's like a subsection of them like I love watching lawn care videos or if there's like there is a video of them I just saw one today of them like getting rid of the mange and the hair of I think it was a Mastiff like this thing had the longest hair like it was dreaded and when it was done so cute, but yeah, I love these videos,

okay?

We're going to talk about videos.

Videos you have to watch more than once.

Videos you can watch for hours.

Videos you send to everybody.

Yes.

Whether they want them or not.

That's coming up at 10 30 and then we'll wrap up the show as we always do with this shouldn't be a thing.

Today it is the run for the border literally edition.

Stay tuned for that.

We do have some exciting baseball news.

We're going to start the NLCS tonight against the Dodgers at

American family

field

this evening.

It's one of seven games, possibly seven games.

We'll see.

I've gone back into my mode of being terminally sick to my stomach.

Just a mixture of hope and dread.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Dread generally wins though.

The hope usually comes around the top of the ninth and we're ahead 38 to four and there's two outs.

That's where I start to feel good.

Yeah.

I'm feeling great about their chances.

Tonight, Game 1 Dodgers at the Brewers.

Our broadcast will start at 6.30.

You cannot listen on the stream.

You do have to listen on Terrestrial Radio.

So you can listen to the game live tonight.

Again, our broadcast starts at 6.30 on WRCE in Richland Center, WISS in Oshkosh, WCQM in Park Falls, WBZH in Hayward and here in Racine and Kenosha.

on WRJN and Brewers hosting the Dodgers tonight at 6.30.

Go, crew.

Go, crew.

And you know what I'll say this to?

Thank you, Cubs, for a great series.

That's very nice of you.

Yes, that's all.

And yes.

And I'm just

going to leave it at that.

And I mean that.

I'm not being snark.

I'm not being, I truly mean it.

It was a great series, fought to the, fought to the very end.

There you go.

That's how to be a gracious winner.

Thank you Cubs fans.

Thank you for undercutting

my moment there Lesson on gracious losing, but

we won't bother right now Everyone was by the way, everyone was expecting me to say that and Jane said that let that record state and show and be carved into the annals of history I

was the good guy this time.

Yeah, sorry Cubs fans.

You lost fair and square get over it.

Okay.

Uh, yeah

More cuts are coming to Wisconsin under the Trump administration and it affects everyone.

Not just people who voted one way or another.

It's kind of shocking.

This from the Wisconsin Examiner, Eric Gunn has the byline.

Wisconsin could lose $130 million as the Energy Department targets grants that were awarded under President Biden.

Trump administration wants to cut up to $24 billion in projects that were originally okayed by the Biden administration.

Yeah, Wisconsin, the grants on the list are a mix of projects helping to boost energy efficiency, including supporting expanding battery storage, which is important.

One potential casualty more than $1 million.

to help prepare young people to enter apprenticeships.

We've talked about, we've heard about this so much, especially from members of the Trump administration where college is a waste, don't go to college.

Go into the trades, do something else, don't go to college.

We had programs in place to help prepare young people to get into apprenticeships so they could go into the trades, and now we're talking about slashing it.

I'm not surprised.

If you know me, you know that I am the product of an apprenticeship program.

I very much believe in them.

I believe in higher education, whatever form that takes.

If it's something requiring four years of college, great.

Go for it.

That's what you need to do.

Do it.

But if that isn't your path, tech schools, vocational schools, apprenticeship programs, getting into the trades,

Those are, and those specifically are just unfireable, well I shouldn't say unfireable chops, you can get fired.

They can take away your training.

You are marketable when you have these types of skills.

And you can take those skills everywhere.

And they cannot export those jobs.

Those jobs have to be done here because you're doing the real work in people's homes and on construction sites, cutting hair, whatever it is.

But we should be fostering this, we should be.

We should be financing it.

It should be investment programs into this to get people through these programs.

But no, they're going to cut them because that's what they do.

Well, rich people need their tax

break.

That's that's what all these cuts are for.

Yeah, let's not forget.

Ultimately, this is about tax breaks for the

ultra

wealthy.

Yes, that is why we need all of these other cuts to offset.

the big gift that they're being given.

Again, by the

way.

Again, yeah.

The two largest Wisconsin projects on this list involve a lion energy.

One is a $50 million grant to upgrade the rural electrical grid.

Upgrading the rural electrical grid.

$50 million for that.

That's important.

Yes.

For our rural communities.

Yes.

Also cutting $30 million for a power storage system to be built near Portage.

The electrical grid upgrade project did get a conditional commitment in December, but the final award agreement has not been executed so far.

No federal monies have been received or

spent.

Again, I'm not shocked by any of this.

I'm not surprised by any of this.

And once again, our rural folks are going to take a hit, another hit.

I mean, we've been talking about this nonstop, whether we're talking about the cuts to public broadcasting that will take away certain

avenues of information from the rural area, hospitals, hospitals.

We're talking about that.

We're talking about upgrading the, the grid.

I mean, and it's all for the billionaires, by the way, there's no, and anytime, anytime someone says, why are they doing this?

If it comes to cutting, funding, programs, anything.

If anyone ever says to you, I don't understand why they're doing that.

Always know you can answer with this.

It's for the billionaires.

It's

always for the billionaires.

They have put, these individuals have put the billion, cause they are the billionaires.

They have put these individuals over us now for, I mean, the umpteenth time, but it's not exactly like all of a sudden America started not caring

about the working class.

It's been like this for a long time, but it's now it is so egregious and so blatant and so just in our face without an apology that

I don't understand how anyone can stand behind this.

And when people like Mike Johnson, the speaker of the house gets on television and says things like, you know, we wanted just a clean bill to fund the government.

Well, no, you don't.

You want to take, this is just another step towards taking away everything when Democrats are trying to stand up to keep the healthcare accessible.

And you're saying it's us giving money to undocumented folks.

It's all.

About convoluted convolution and all about blurring the narrative the narrative is always going to be about giving the billionaires money period done your money becomes their money

Well, it's pretty much their money anyway Grant for the city of calcana to install battery storage and also make electrical grid upgrades Also on the list to get cut

the original grant was worth three million dollars so far about sixty thousand has been spent uh has been paid out rather leaving almost three million that could still be canceled

yeah it's not good again tell me why this works tell me why this makes america win tell me why this is a good move from uh the white house i i need to i need you to make me understand why this makes us win

8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2, if you'd like to join the conversation.

Jean from Eau Claire on the line.

Jean, we don't have a lot of time left, but go ahead.

Thanks for joining us.

What do you want to say?

Okay, now this is my opinion from watching everything.

I do not believe that Trump wants to make America great.

I think he wants to destroy it.

And everybody who didn't vote for him, he lost last election.

And there's other things too.

Why is he...

going after, you know, he's hurting us internally, externally.

Uh, where's all the money going?

We supposed to have all this money.

In addition to that, why is this airport?

I'm not sure all the specifics on it from Qatar going into Idaho.

This just makes me sick guys.

I hope people are paying attention.

This guy is so dangerous.

He's hurting every aspect of our country, and I hope everybody gets out there paying attention who's running.

We gotta vote these people out.

It is sick.

Thank you very much.

And I'm sorry to say that this morning, but watch what's going on folks.

You have to.

Bye-bye.

Appreciate it, Gene.

Thank you.

Not wrong.

Myvote.wi.gov.

Look up who represents you.

Tell them what you're thinking.

Tell them what you

want out of your leaders, myvote.wi.gov.

And if you're looking for like-minded people, no King's protests are set for this coming Saturday across the country.

From what the Republicans said, it's going to be full of Marxists.

Socialist communist feminists, so I don't know if you want to go to that or not, but I'm just and George Soros will be there and he'll be there personally handing out checks Oh good.

Oh when we return George Stephanopoulos shows how it's done

more like Stephanopoulos.

Are you

right?

Stay close.

You're listening to Matt near on air on the civic media radio network

This is how we do it.

This is how we do it.

La, la, la, la, la.

Good morning.

Welcome back to Matt and Air on Air.

Jane Matt and Air, Greg Bach.

Doctors slide on the board coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine where you can join us.

Call or text the number is the same at 855-752-4842.

You can also leave a comment.

If you're watching in the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter coming up after the 9 30 news, civic media news director, Shelly Pittman will join us for a little recap.

We're going to focus a little bit more on those data centers, the one in Mount Pleasant that was just rejected.

And now there is some late opposition to one that looks like it's pretty much going forward in Port Washington.

So we will talk with Shelly about that coming up right now, though.

I don't know if you watch much Sunday morning television, all the Sunday morning talking heads.

It depends on which one you're talking about and it depends on who is on.

Sometimes you're more interested than others.

But yeah, I am looking forward to this little moment here.

George Stephanopoulos had on Vice President JD Vance yesterday.

And he was asking him about borders are Tom Hohman.

Why Jane?

For those of you who may be unaware, there was an undercover FBI sting carried out in September of 2024.

Members of the FBI were posing as business people who allegedly gave Tom Hohman a bag with 50 grand in cash in a fast food bag.

After Tom Hohman helped to get them government contracts if Trump won the election The White House has denied this Hohman himself has denied in the illegal conduct But it's never been clear on did he take the money did he give the money back?

It's on tape.

Yeah, it's on tape.

Yes, of course when Trump came in he closed the case But here is the exchange yesterday between George Stephanopoulos

and Vice President G.D.

Vance about these allegations against Borders R. Tom Holman, Calvin, please.

So you don't, what was caught on the tape, you're saying right now you don't know whether or not he kept that money.

I don't know what tape you're referring to, George.

I saw media reports that Tom Homan accepted a bribe.

There's no evidence of that.

And here's George, why fewer and fewer people watch your program and why you're losing credibility because you're talking for now five minutes with the Vice President of the United States about this story regarding Tom Homan, a story that I've read about, but I don't even know the video that you're talking about.

Meanwhile, low-income women can't get food because the Democrats and Chuck Schumer have shut

down.

Right

now, we're trying to figure out how to pay our troops because Chuck Schumer has shut down

the government.

You're

focused on a bogus story.

You're insinuating criminal wrongdoing against

a guy

who has done nothing wrong instead of focusing on the fact that our country is struggling because our government's shut down.

Let's

talk about the real issues, Gorge.

I think the American people would benefit much more from that than from you going down some weird left-wing rabbit hole where the facts clearly show that Tom Homan didn't engage in any criminal

wrongdoing.

It's not a weird left-wing rabbit hole.

I didn't insinuate anything I asked you whether Tom Homan accepted $50,000 as was heard on an audio tape recorded by the FBI in September 2024 and you did not answer the question Thank you for your time this morning.

No I said that I don't up next.

We'll be right back.

Yep.

Bye Thank you.

Bye.

Bye.

That is how you do it the vice president United States which by the way when he goes you're talking to the vice president United States.

Yeah

Seal is celebrity at best second of all when you're lying there are consequences And he is not owed that microphone and you take it away when he's abusing the privilege and that's what that was It was a privilege and once again that man the new mouthpiece of the Trump administration if you ask me because I've never I don't know in your history Jane Have you ever seen the vice president so visible on television?

Oh, no

He is everywhere.

Because the vice president doesn't have much of a job.

And I'm not being, I'm seriously, they have as much responsibility as they want.

And he has chosen to be the on-air press secretary of the Trump administration.

And when you lie like that, you take away the lollipop.

And that's what George Stephanopoulos did.

And that little moment, as I said to you earlier, is how you

start.

It's a great beginning.

It is.

Again, he won't answer the question.

He's doing nothing but obfuscate.

He's lying through his teeth.

Well, and again, and there's more to the exchange, but he's talking about, well, I'm sure Tom Holman has accepted, you know, he's a businessman, so sure he's accepted $50,000.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, but it's just...

The tap dancing involved in this yeah, we is pretty amazing.

I'm sure I'm sure he's accepted I'm sure he's accepted $50,000 in bags before but the point is we're talking about this moment and you know about the video and you know about the story and it's not a left-wing rabbit hole it is actually about a person giving favoritism to a group While on camera or I should say promising

favoritism getting bribes for favors exactly getting bribes for favors which

I don't know, under previous administrations, used to be a crime.

And also, I mean,

let's just, once again, let's just try to imagine a world.

We're a prominent Democrat.

Let's say one in New Jersey who accepted money and gold.

What should happen?

Oh, that's right.

He left office and he's in jail now.

Because the Democrats demanded it.

Yes.

Yes.

We're talking about gold bar Bob Menendez.

And his wife, too, is held liable and responsible as well.

Being held responsible for their own actions, what a terrible thing.

When Democrats do things wrong, we take action, folks, because it's disgusting and they're liberal and awful.

Tom Holman, eh,

who doesn't like a bag full of cash?

Exactly.

It was only $50,000.

Back!

Come on.

I find that stuff in my couch cushions.

Who doesn't get that in a Burger King bag?

We have news coming up next.

And then when we return, Civic Media News director, Shaly Pittman will be here.

Stay close.

You are listening to Matt Nair on air on this Civic Media radio

network.

Good morning, welcome back to Matt and Air on Air.

Jane Matt and Air, Greg Box, Sweet Calvary on the board, coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us, call or text.

The number is the same, 855-752-4842.

Leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.

She is Civic Media's news director, Shaly Pittman.

Joining us, good morning, Shaly.

Thanks for being here.

How are you?

Good morning.

It's just another Monday in Paradise, right?

Right, exactly.

We won't talk about the Badgers game.

We'll pretend that never happened.

and just talk about other things like data centers.

We did talk about this a little bit last week, Shelley, after Microsoft pulled out its plan for a data center in the village of Caledonia.

There was a lot of pushback from the community there.

Yeah, and, you know, I know you talk about this stuff and we've even talked about it a couple weeks ago.

And, you know, to be honest, there wasn't a ton of news over the weekend outside of Sportsball, so I thought it was a good time to go a little more in depth into data centers because it is constantly generating.

headlines.

So yes, the Microsoft has pulled its plans for a data center in a village of Caledonia.

I think I joined you two weeks ago and forecasted this.

public meeting in the village hall, which I went to and did indeed bring out many members of the community.

We have some reporting up on our website from that.

It was so packed that the parking lot was overflowed and I talked with the local police officer who was frustrated that people were parking in the staff parking lot because there was nowhere to park.

What was interesting about that meeting before the plan was pulled is that you did see a variety of folks from all backgrounds or kind of political walks of life, strange bedfellows almost coming out to voice their opposition.

I saw in the parking lot as they're inside as

folks were testifying against giving their opposition.

You know, I saw someone from hot government and someone from the party for socialism and liberation in dialogue in the village of Caledonia parking lot.

So, you know, I think it's interesting that this is falling neatly along party lines.

No,

Microsoft.

forgive me and I'll look this up too but hot government is that a group that I don't know what that is?

Hot government is a grassroots group in Racine County that has voiced election conspiracy

The election conspiracies in the past yet.

I think if you I had a long conversation with the gentleman who who said he I should say wasn't there in his official capacity for hot government but Opposed the the development project because Opposed the data center because he said it would ruin the nature of the village of Caledonia You know that this was antithetical to the kind of rural way of life and that it was big companies

coming in to take over.

I hope I answered your question.

You can look them up.

No, I'll look them up.

Honestly, I assume that the way you describe the other group, I'm like, oh, hot government sounds like it's more on the conservative side.

But honestly, that description, and we can talk about this another time, just kind of lends to the discussion that.

We can be differing on a lot of topics, but some of these discussion points, we come together and agree on.

So continue, continue.

Thank you for that clarification.

And I should say that HOT stands for Honest, Open, and Transparent Government in that acronym.

Thank

you.

That was established, I think, like five years ago.

There's a lot to unpack there, but we won't get into it.

So this plan has been pulled right in the village of Caledonia.

Microsoft later said, hey, we're not going to pursue it here.

And I bring that up because the plan to the village board had been slated to meet on this tomorrow.

So that's not going to happen.

Microsoft does say, though, that they are still looking at a site in Racine County.

And Microsoft is already constructing a data center in Mount Pleasant on the site of the former.

or Foxconn site.

I did drive around there two weeks ago, and I don't know if either of you have ever driven

around that area.

I have a good friend who lives pretty close to there.

It's huge.

Yeah.

The footprint is enormous.

I

live a hop and skip away from there, and one day I was driving up to Racine, and I just sort of drove around the area that I felt like I was allowed to be in, but it is gigantic, and that huge...

green orb and everything about it just feels very weird.

But I mean, honestly, for me personally, and this is my personal take, I was happy to see someone coming in to use the land.

But yeah, I mean, what did you see, Shali, when you drove around?

I saw a lot of new development, a lot of new roads that weren't entirely fully functioning yet in some, you know, it kind of gives you a sense of how quickly in this

not overnight, but how quickly some of this has sprung up that, you know, some of the traffic lights aren't working.

Um, I also saw some interesting, um, titles.

Uh, what was it?

I think there was innovation lane and, you know, just that your

synergy avenue and

right, right.

Um, prosperity

road.

You get a sense for how vast this is and you wonder what was there before because I'm not from the area.

It was farmland.

It was farmland.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And driving around as I was doing my loop-de-loops, I also, you know, saw, you know, if you go far enough, you're like, oh yeah, this is wilderness, right?

Yes.

There's a creek running through here.

So it kind of just helped give me a sense of scale for how vast

Yeah, it's it's it's massive.

It is it is massive We're talking about the Microsoft what was originally the Fox con and now the Microsoft site in in Mount Pleasant By the way, if you're just joining Matt near on here shali Pittman our news director is our guest She joins us on Mondays

and I was just gonna say for the people listening to and what you're talking about shali as far as

what's there now and what used to be is, you know, once you hit Racine County all the way down to Kenosha County, you see all of these buildings in various stages of construction.

And that is all like within the past five, six years, 10 years if you want to include the Amazon buildings.

And it was all to what you were saying, Shali, it was all farmland.

It was just vast acres of land not being used by farmers and it's being sold off.

little by little all the time, every time we see a new building.

So yeah, it's, it's interesting to see, but yeah, again, I'll go back.

I am happy that it's at least being, it can't be used for farmland anymore.

So I'm just at least happy someone's using it.

When you attended this meeting, I'm curious how many people were concerned about water usage because these data centers require an enormous amount of water in order to keep everything cool is my understanding.

Yeah, the water usage is something I have, frankly, a trouble understanding.

So residents I spoke with had a number of concerns with the plan, water usage, electricity costs.

skepticism over jobs numbers.

I was thinking as you were talking, Greg, about the deindustrialization of Milwaukee and how, you know, how this development plays into it.

But the folks I spoke with were skeptical that it would really bring so many jobs, at least permanent jobs, noise and traffic concern over kind of big corporations coming into town.

The water issue is interesting because

places like the Microsoft facility have pointed to a closed loop water system.

Right, wherein it doesn't-

It just circulates.

It just circulates.

Right.

Now, I'm still unclear because there have been conflicting messages on that.

Let's see.

There are environmental groups who have estimated that these could use a lot more than those closed loop systems would allow you to believe.

And it's different for every kind of data center.

And same too with the energy usage, right?

We've kind of had conflicting messages.

There was an analysis from Clean Wisconsin that found that just two of these data centers, including the

underdevelopment one in Mount Pleasant from Microsoft would use enough energy to power, nearly double the number of homes in Wisconsin.

But again,

It varies.

These things are so vast,

right?

That tracking them is challenging.

But that is a concern and certainly with energy costs as well, because I have seen in some other areas of the country where they're talking about putting governors, getting people to agree with their power providers, that the power provider can use governors on their electricity.

for when the data center needs more, they can take it from your house.

So this

is an ongoing thing and there's lots of unanswered questions around these.

It is an ongoing thing.

So later this week in Port Washington, there's another meeting on Thursday over a TIF district for the data center project there.

Now that's also faced strong opposition and some of the folks who showed up in Caledonia were not village of Caledonia residents, right?

They are going to all these proposed data centers and voicing their opposition, which I also thought was interesting.

So that's already underway.

That's with the Denver based vantage.

The poor Washington, that's a done deal, isn't it?

That's happening.

It just seems like the opposition to this came kind of late.

Yeah, that's something that one of the folks from the party for socialism and liberation brought up to me is that this appeared to

happened kind of quickly in Port Washington.

And yes, it's a done deal.

But in another instance, in Menominee, a planned data center there isn't going through.

The mayor released a memo, I think at the end of September, saying that they're no longer interested in the project, this time from balloonist LLC.

And the mayor kind of cited concerns about the water usage.

It would have been the fifth highest water user in the city.

Um, not the top.

So, um, so yeah, there, that's what's happening this week.

And that's what's happened in the last two weeks.

Well, and as you said too, though, Shelly, it's building these data centers as far as providing jobs as one thing.

Yes.

You need construction workers in order to get this up and running.

But once it's up and running, most of this stuff is automated by design.

So it will need many, many fewer people to run it than to build it.

Yeah.

That was pointed out to me from folks who were opposed.

Tough to see it without putting eyes on how data centers work, right?

I should point out that Wisconsin already has about four dozen, just under four dozen data centers.

Most of them are in southeastern Wisconsin, according to one site that

It's called the data center map.

I don't know much about it, but that seems to be what people are citing.

There are 21 in Milwaukee, five in Kenosha, and Racine.

There are 11 in Madison.

I didn't know

that.

See, I think that's going to be a surprise to people to find out how many are already here.

We're going to continue our discussion with Civic Media News Director Shali Pittman on the other side.

Stay with us.

You are listening to Matt Nair on air.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network, and we'll be right back.

Good morning, welcome back to Matt and Air on Air.

Jane Matt and Air, Greg Bach.

Calvitini on the board, coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us, call or text.

at 855-752-4842.

Leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.

About an hour from now, we will wrap up the show as we always do.

With this shouldn't be a thing.

Today it is the run for the border literally edition.

So stay tuned for that.

Right now, we are joined by Civic Media News Director, Shaly Pittman.

We've been talking about the data centers that are popping up in some cases in Wisconsin.

Others getting shot down like the one in Mount Pleasant.

When you sent us your show notes, Shaly, before we got in the air here, again, I think people will be surprised by how many data centers are already in Wisconsin because I didn't know that either.

Did you look at that map?

I didn't but I was just looking at your show notes.

I mean again 21 and Milwaukee that that's up.

Where are they?

Well, you know, I think some of them are smaller than Kind of what we envision as

these big great big campuses,

right?

I can pull some up, but it's

at

datacentermap.com and you can go ahead and look.

I wanted to talk though more about the why datacenters might be attracted to Wisconsin right now or why they might not be.

In the last...

budget cycle, not the current one that we're currently in, but in the 2023-2025 biennial budget, there was a sales and use tax exemption created to attract data centers to Wisconsin.

It assumed that the data centers that would be interested

interested would be maybe like some of these on the map that are maybe a little bit smaller and not the giant ones like the Microsoft facility in Mount Pleasant.

And there's reporting from the outlet the Center Square that finds that there's been $70 million in foregone sales tax in the first two years of this being implemented.

A good amount of that coming from Microsoft.

So,

There's that.

Did you hear about this at the time during the budget last cycle?

That skipped right

past me.

But am I surprised?

No.

It's why the budget process is so important to pay attention to and why it's...

their infinite stories in the budget process.

So

anyway, I haven't seen this reported out widely.

So about a week and a half ago, there was an assembly committee that had a public hearing on kind of a technical update to this sales and tax exemption for data centers from

the last budget, right?

It's Assembly Bill 245, and it's supported by groups like Metro Milwaukee Association of Commerce, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation.

They don't like to be called Whedic.

The Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and the Wisconsin Utilities Association, it's also supported though by ARC Data Centers LLC.

And ARC Data Centers is a data center company, they said near Appleton, I think it's in Manashe, and their CEO testified during this public hearing.

He explained how Arc Data Centers is a little bit different than your typical data center project

where

they allow multiple customers kind of within the same building.

And so what this technical amendment would do would allow a company like Arc Data Centers to qualify for some of these tax credits, because right now, under what's written, it doesn't allow you to qualify for those tax incentives if you have multiple tenants.

I think they called it condominium-style data centers,

which

is an interesting way to phrase it.

They're

like data roomies.

Yeah, right.

And speaking before this assembly committee, the CEO kind of talked about how...

He was asked about concerns that have been voiced about Dana centers.

And he said, look, we generate the power on the property.

There's a closed loop water supply.

And he said the phrase, all Dana centers are not equal, which I thought was interesting.

Obviously trying to distance himself, I think from

some of this

other publicity.

But he also spoke about why Wisconsin is competitive as we all

depend on data centers in some way, I think, but why Wisconsin is a key market.

The things that he mentioned, I haven't heard widely, which is that we're right in the center of the United States, which is helpful for companies on both the...

East and West coasts.

Right, on both

coasts.

He said there was not as much tornado activity or tornadic activity.

Tornadic.

I mean, we still have some tornadoes, but maybe not quite as many as...

Where's this guy

from?

I don't know.

That's a

good question.

And then he also spoke about the fact that we are just attractive to places that want a disaster recovery strategy.

So they want to back up the data somewhere, even if it's held somewhere else, primarily we're a good backup because Wisconsin is all things being equal, relatively stable in terms of kind of climate.

So I thought that was interesting, right?

He also said though that

Wisconsin would be just as good as neighboring states except for this tax credit not applying evenly and that their customers have gone to other states including Illinois, Minnesota and Texas.

So yeah, that's the update on

that.

Check out Civic Media today.

Subscribe.

It is fantastic.

Thank you so much, Shali.

Really appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

News coming up next, keep it right here on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Good morning and welcome, welcome to Matt and Air on Air.

Jane Matt and Air, Greg Bach, Calvin Butenoff, coming to you live from her home at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us.

Call or text the number is the same, 855-752-4842.

You can also leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.

And when you leave those live stream comments, we read them.

And I just want to say shout out to Cornell.

Thank you so much.

Great show, Matt and Aaron.

Well, you know what, Cornell?

You're a great show too.

Appreciate

that, Cornell.

Thanks for watching and listening.

Yep, very much.

We really appreciate it.

Baseball.

I know.

Hang on.

Baseball tonight.

Brewers moving on.

Yeah into the NLCS game one tonight Brewers hosting the Dodgers our broadcast starts at 630 You can't listen on the stream Because of baseball rules and things like that, but you can listen on terrestrial radio.

Yeah here in Racine and Kenosha You can catch the game tonight our broadcast starts at 630 on WRJN 99.9 FM

1400 AM here in Racine and 98.1 FM in Kenosha.

Brewers hosting the Dodgers tonight at 6.30.

I can't,

there's times when I wish I could treat baseball with the same indifference I'd treat.

So many other things.

Football

and to even more disregard basketball, but no, I'm in this and it makes me, so baseball was designed to hurt us.

Jane that's what I would believe slow and slow and painful 162 games at least of pain.

Why

do we do this to ourselves because we love it?

Because we love it.

It really is the greatest.

All right, go crew.

Go crew.

Hosting the Dodgers tonight, our broadcast will start at 6.30.

We had hoped to be joined by George King IV with Democrats Abroad.

We must have had our signals crossed.

Maybe it was a time difference issue.

But the topic remains, Democrats Abroad has talked about this.

Democracy docket has talked about this.

GOP's latest voter suppression target oversees Americans.

which I really

don't feel, Jane, that it's that new of a target because in the, you know, if you look at them, if you look at the micro, yes, they want to, they want to target all ability to vote and anything that isn't on the day in-person ballot is paper ballot is bad.

I don't even think he decides that bad, but in the last election and the election before that, Donald Trump made it very clear.

what his intentions were with voting, and he made it very clear that we should be taking a deeper look at what's happening overseas, because there's a lot of fraud that's happening overseas, Jane.

There's a lot of fraud.

Well, I think it's important to reiterate the point that if you are an American citizen, regardless of where you live, but if you are not living on American soil right now, you have the right to vote.

Now, granted, it's tough.

If there's a process, it's not like, you know, you have to send away for ballots, you have to make sure you're on

certain time- You have to

contact your election clerk.

Yes, you have to put the work and end, and honestly, I'm not so sure, I think that's a good thing.

To keep everything safe and secure and the processes up to speed, if you're gonna live overseas, yes, you have to put in a little more work to get your ballot.

If you wanna vote, fine, done.

But you have that right no matter what.

For decades.

for decades.

Yes.

And what the right has never been able to square with me and those who disagree, a lot of people disagree with this, is you want to take away those, those rights.

Okay.

You're taking away those rights from military personnel too.

He wants to paint the picture of these are disgusting liberals living in liberal European and other Canadian and Australian cities, not voting for me, but that's not true at all.

Well, we don't know how

these people are voting.

Exactly.

But also, it's just, you're right.

And you're messing with people's, you're threatening people's rights,

I should say.

Federal law for decades.

Federal law for decades has guaranteed that U.S.

citizens living abroad can vote in federal elections.

Republicans historically championed that.

They were all about that, especially from active duty military.

But as civilian voter participation abroad has gone up and become a greater part of the share of the overseas vote, now the GOP is changing its tune.

Not a surprise.

Recent legal battles, again this from democracy docket, recent legal battles in Arizona, Michigan and North Carolina show this growing trend

to disqualify ballots cast in state elections by U.S.

citizens voting overseas.

Voting rights advocates say these attacks are part of a bigger strategy driven by shifting demographics and political patterns from the overseas electorate.

I guess I want to know the grounds on which they are placing their request for invalidation, first and foremost.

Do they think that it's just voter fraud, that some guy in Ipswich who's lived in Ipswich's whole life who found a ballot on the ground because someone discarded it and said, I'm going to vote for Kamala Harris.

Now I'm not going to do an Ipswich accent.

I want to vote for Kamala Harris.

What are the grounds on which they're basing their request for invalidation?

That's a very good question.

The next question I have, and not the next question, but my thought is based on what you just said.

on top of the data we're getting from last year is, one, we don't know who any of these people are voting for.

No.

We do not at all.

All we know is that they have cast a ballot.

I can say with great confidence and 99.9% certainty that some of them voted for Donald Trump and some of them voted for Kamala Harris.

I will bet.

You're gonna go out on that limb.

I'll bet Calvin's car on that.

I will.

But the other thing is, the other point is,

We don't know who they're voting for but what we do know is that in 2024 after a concerted effort from various state party various GOP state parties They push the narrative of mail-in voting of early voting bank your vote vote absentee it helps.

It's not bad.

It's not in the face of their leader still

talking smack about it, they were doing this.

And it worked to their benefit.

It did.

It worked to their advantage.

So the only thing it makes it look like they're just trying to disenfranchise, intimidate voters from all over the world now.

That's the only way you can pose this.

It's not about free and fair elections.

It's not about the safety and the processes.

It's about suppressing votes, pure and simple.

And I know that because I don't know a single Donald Trump supporter who's been able to frame it in a way that makes it make sense.

Over four

million U.S.

citizens are eligible to vote in overseas voting.

This was put into effect by Ronald Reagan.

Voter turnout from overseas U.S.

citizens overall is at less than 10% of those who are eligible.

So the vast majority of people who are eligible to vote overseas don't.

So this is a very small percentage.

But here's where we...

Here's where it comes in is this the called the rubber here's the here be the rub data from the u.s.

Election Assistance Commission found that in 2010 military members and their families cast about 51 percent of overseas ballots 40 percent were civilians in 2020 civilian votes surpassed military votes okay making up about 57 percent of voters that's when

the GOP started jumping in.

So again,

let's make it, let's, let's, I want to quote, I'm going to quote one of my favorite comedians, Stephen Fry.

This is going to be plain flavored English.

When a group of people see that voting is increasing or they see possible threats to their power coming forward, which we don't know.

Again, we don't know who they voted for.

But when they see an increase of a population who's voting that they don't, in fact,

trust like or think likes or trust them, they are going to do their best to intimidate and to disenfranchise those votes.

What does it say about the party that's leading this?

Now, you're going to scream safe and fair elections.

We need to keep them secure.

They are.

It's proven.

Sorry.

That science is already in no takesy backsies on that one.

But what does it say about the party that continue that actually now has changed their tune from one year ago?

Yeah, seriously.

What does it say about the party that's doing all of this?

What does it say about them that they want to make sure that either all of the availability of voting for a group of people is taken away or curtailing the ability to vote for certain groups of people?

If their policies are so popular and they have such a mandate.

By the way, it wasn't a landslide election.

He didn't win by a landslide.

It wasn't a landslide.

If their policies were so incredibly popular, why are they continually trying to limit the number of people who can vote?

By 2024, Trump and the GOP falsely claim Democrats are exploiting this overseas voting program to flood the system with illegal votes.

Trump.

quoted on his social media platform in September, quote, Democrats are talking about how they're working so hard to get millions of votes from Americans living overseas.

Actually, they're getting ready to cheat.

They're going to use this program to get ballots.

A program emailing ballots overseas without any citizenship check or verification of identity whatsoever.

That's all lies.

That is all lies.

Pure lie.

Pure lie.

Again, we've talked to Democrats abroad before.

People who live overseas and the process it takes to get a ballot.

A process.

A long process too.

A long process.

You actually have to contact your election clerk.

Because that's who generates the ballot for you.

It's not like you go to some site on the web that says print off your ballot and mail it in.

That's not how

it works.

Write down in a piece of paper who you voted for.

Just send

it into this PO box.

Yeah.

No.

It's just, it's, God, I hate talking about this because it's tiresome.

The fact that, the fact that, you know, there's going to be a subsect of people who just believe no matter what that the ballots are stolen and the election is fraudulent and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But the problem we have is that there are another subsect of people who will scratch their chin and go, well, it's actually interesting topic to talk about what we should be, no, we have bigger, no, no, no, two things.

stop giving billionaires our money, release the Epstein files.

Those are the things we should be talking about.

Not this lying narrative about people voting overseas, exercising their just God-given rights through the Constitution.

That has been

in place for decades.

Put in

place by the most liberal president, Ronald Reagan.

Yeah, he was cuckoo.

We gotta talk about this because they just get to steal the narrative whenever they want.

A year ago, bank your vote.

Now, they're cheating.

Make up your mind.

It's very tiresome.

Also, folks who voted for Donald Trump, who are listening right now, thank you for giving us your time.

I mean that.

Thank you for giving us your time.

You're being as hosed as we're going to be hosed, because it doesn't matter.

You're red, you're blue.

If you're working class, middle class,

Poor, working poor doesn't matter.

We're all getting hosed together because we are taking our eyes off the ball.

We're giving money to billionaires and they won't release the Epstein files.

Those are the things that should never stop being talked about.

And we should be allowed to vote if you live overseas.

Again, it's been in law for decades.

Ronald Reagan said it was okay.

My vote.wi.gov, call your representatives, even if it's the ones you believe are against policies like this, still call them and tell them what you want from them.

Tell them what you expect from your leaders.

Tell them they're doing a great job if you think so, but myvote.wi.gov is where you're going to go to contact your reps.

And just remind them, they work for us.

And they're getting paid during a shutdown.

They work for us.

When we return some exciting news about the laughing tap, the tap of laughing, stay close.

You're listening to Matt Near On Air on the Civic Media Radio Network.

you

Good morning.

Welcome back to Matt Nair on air.

Jane Matt Nair, Greg Bach, our resident young person, Calvin on the board, coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us.

Call or text at 855-752-4842.

Leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter coming up after the 1030 news.

Well, lighten it up with a segment we call Audio Sorbet, where we take a breath, get away from the news, talk about sillier things.

Today we're going to talk about videos that you cannot stop watching.

Could be something you find on Twitter, could be something on Instagram or TikTok or wherever.

Or it might just be the topic that you cannot stop watching videos of.

You have a very specific one.

I have a couple, like there are ones that bring me great joy and great relaxation too.

And I want to open up just a tiny bit more about this, whether it's your partner, whether it's a friend, is there someone in your life that you're constantly sending videos to?

I have a couple in my life who would say it's like, if you

look at every video,

well, no, I do too.

Like if you look at our conversations, it's literally like, you know, Hey, how's it going?

Video, video, video, video, video, video, what's going on?

Video, video, video, video.

It's, it's that.

And we're cool.

But yeah, that's, it's a fun, this is going to be a fun one.

Cause those videos I want, I just, you know, I want.

there to be feel joy and those in this day and age is kind of how we find

a little bit to join in.

It's what it's all about.

Little bits of happiness.

Speaking of happy news.

The Brewers are growing to the NLCS.

They

are.

And the Laughing Tap.

That is true.

The

Laughing Tap has a new home.

The Laughing

Tap is going to the NLCS this year.

We're going to take on the Dodgers and I don't fare well because I am

out of shape and can't run.

No, this is great news.

You and your co-owners of The Laughing Tap have signed a new lease.

You had been on what Fifth Street for a while.

Yes, we had been in historic Walker's Point for five years.

Five years and some change.

So I'll give you the really quick version of it.

October of 2019.

So six years ago this month, we announced the opening of the laughing tap, which would have been, which was, and will continue to be the only standup comedy club in Milwaukee city.

So there are other places for- There's one in Brookfield,

I know.

But

there's also comedy sports

and there is

the interchange theater.

There are places to see comedy in Milwaukee, but as far as standup goes, there's no dedicated club and we were the only option and we made that Milwaukee's home for standup comedy.

Uh, we open for about seven, eight weeks because we open in January, 2020.

Don't recommend opening business before timing.

Yeah.

It's all with comedy as is timing.

Close for five months reopened in the later part of 2020 to incredible, uh, standards of cleaning and operations and whatnot.

We were doing shows at 12 people.

Everyone was masked up, keeping distances.

It was tough.

Yeah.

But

somehow, exactly.

Businesses that have been around for 20, 30, 40, 50 years didn't make it and the tap made it.

So fast forward to, fast forward to late last year, we had to make the decision that we needed to leave that space because it just was not advantageous for our company to be there anymore for its opportunities.

So we closed the club in June of this year mid and we just said,

we're gonna look we're gonna look you know and we had to answer a lot of questions like we're not closing we're not done we're not out of business and people asking me for months what's going on and I put on Facebook I say today marks the first day I don't have to say well we don't know yet or we're still working on it because

The new location of the Laughing Tap will be at the George Watts and Sun Building on Milwaukee's East Side Commercial District, the George Watts building just outside of Cathedral Square.

Right

now,

right near Fister, the Fister.

Right near Fist.

Yeah, actually like, like a

walk across

the street essentially is going to be the new location.

It was constructed in 1925.

It's a great building.

Italian Renaissance design, so there's a lot of art deco in there and that's going to be

That's going to be informing our design choices

as well.

I'm going to just read what we have here.

It says, for over nine decades, the George Watson sons building was synonymous with fine crystal in China and renowned throughout Milwaukee community serving the James Beard worthy sunshine cake constructed in 1925.

Our Italian Renaissance desired two tone terracotta.

It was sold in 2019 to continuing architecture and planners who are our landlords.

We've been working closely

with them.

Great stuff.

And

They are upstairs.

It's next to the Kessler's Diamond Center.

So we're going to be next to all sorts of cool jewelry.

And it's going to be a great building.

And we're starting with the first floor.

It's going to be a new club.

It's going to be more seating.

There'll be more.

originally at 80 in the old space, we're going to be able to do between 100 to 120 at least.

Still

a

nice intimate space.

Exactly, exactly.

And that's what all comedy, that's for me, that I don't want to get into a match about anything, but for me personally, a intimate space, and you talk to great comedians, they want, they want intimate spaces.

They want a nice, arenas, I'm sorry, arenas suck for comedy.

But the point is,

We have made the announcement.

We have signed the lease.

We have a key.

There are no announcements on when it will be opening.

Well, you have some infrastructure things you have to take

care of.

Yes, there's a bunch of

construction and design that needs to be done in that space.

But that is the big announcement that as of right now, the Laughing Tap has a new home.

And when we have more information, we will give it to you.

But we will be staying in Milwaukee.

We'll be in the downtown East Side area.

And we're very much looking forward to what the future holds for.

what we're doing for comedy and what we're doing for the area too, because it's a local business.

It's local art.

Local comics and local comics and thriving in a day and age of corporatization.

And

that's great news.

That's great.

Great news.

Laughing tap.

New home, George Watts building.

We will update you as it becomes available.

Roger from Stevens Point texting and congratulations, Greg.

Thank you very much.

If you want to find out more, go to laughingtap.com.

You can sign up for our newsletter.

It comes out like right now.

It comes out once a week, every two weeks, because there's not a lot happening per se, but we'll let you know more as we know more.

Thank you everyone for your support.

We truly, truly appreciate it.

And I met Pat Noswell last week.

News is next, and then when we return, audio sorbet, hope you can join us, you're listening to Matt Nair on air, on the vast state-wide, country-wide, you can pick us up around the globe on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Good morning.

Welcome back to Matt Nair on air.

Jane Matt Nair and Greg Bach, our one hour only Calzone on the board coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.

You can join us, call or text at 855-752-4842.

Leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.

We do have baseball coming up later on.

Our broadcast will start at six.

30 as the Brewers host the Dodgers in Game 1 of the NLCS.

You can listen to the game on Terrestrial Radio if you're in Richland Center on WRC and Oshkosh on WISS and here in Racine and Kenosha on WRJN.

Again, our broadcast will start tonight at 6.30.

Go crew.

It is the time of the show that we call Audio Sorbet where we lighten things up.

Take a breath, get away from the news, talk about sillier things, because we all need that.

This came up as we were getting ready for the show, because we're always surfing social media and looking for things and looking for topics.

And you shared a video genre that you can watch over and over again, because it makes you happy.

Yeah.

I mean,

well,

You were, honestly, so it all started with just you.

So every day we come in, we're scrolling all the sites.

God help us.

It's a lot.

There's a lot.

But especially when you're, when you're scrolling social media, what's great is that you can, you know, like the Trump administration is taking candy from children and laughing in their faces.

But then you scroll another very like, Oh my God, it's just dog getting a bath.

And it's those

little moments that really make the difference.

And I'm not just, I'm not discounting the, the, the, the, the heft of what the news is that we need to pay attention to, but it does provide momentary escape.

And you were,

Scrolling and I saw a video where it was just a mashup of people opening up drains to drain flooded areas clearing storm drains clearing storm drains and there's a whole Subsection of the internet of social media of people doing that of clearing storm drains and

I love those videos, because you know what's gonna, it never ends with, womp, womp, he didn't get it.

My car floated away.

It always gets cleared.

There's a happy ending.

There's always an ending that makes you feel good.

And I love them.

So we, and I wasn't even, you know, that's the beauty of also of Audio Sorbet, is that- Something innocuous.

Well, it's not only innocuous, but you can't decide, you can't sit down like, all right, what are we gonna talk about for, every time we do that,

It never works or it sucks.

It always has to happen in the aggregate.

It has to happen on the side.

I mentioned it and you said that's audio.

So that's how we do it here at matinee on air industries and laboratories is we don't do it.

It's very scientific.

We don't think too much about things.

Say that about the whole show.

Yeah.

But but yeah.

So the question we pose and we'll keep it simple in the first part but it's very inclusive in its totality is that what are the videos

that make you feel good, whether it is the genre, like clearing storm drains, or is it just a video that you love that you want to make sure.

And you watch over and over and over.

Yes.

Share share those thoughts with us eight five five seven five two four eight four two eight five five seven five seven you can Send the links F will not FCC compliant so much.

It's just not weird gross Send those no pimple popper videos send those to us via text or through the live stream I'd love to see if they make you happy.

They'll make me happy.

Absolutely.

So

tell us Do you have a genre?

Do you have a video and are you the type person who has a friend or a partner where it's just like

I'm gonna send this to so-and-so.

Bridget has discovered the videos on Facebook and it has become just, I'm inundated.

So I have to sometimes be like, I'll have you, no, no, no, no, no.

I just have to go back later and watch all of them.

So yeah, I, yes, I could talk about this for hours.

What is your video genre?

What is the clip that you watch over and over?

Or again, is it a subsection?

Is it just people clearing storm drains?

What's your thing?

855-752-4842 855-75 Civic.

That is our audio sorbet question for today.

What is your video that you can watch maybe over and over and over or it's just a whole genre of videos that

that make you happy, take you away for a moment, 855-752-4842.

Now, I