Can Elon Musk Buy the WI Supreme Court? (Hour 1)

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This is Up North News Radio.

Now, live from our Lake Minnesota studio, here's the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Breitler.

Well, hey there, Wisconsin.

Good morning.

It is 6.06 on this Tuesday morning, February 18th, 2025.

Four days until the Brewers' first spring training game.

37 days till the season opener.

And it's another beautiful cold morning to have you here up north live from Lake Wissota from wherever you're listening across the civic media radio network or on the app, watching us on social media or on demand by podcast.

We appreciate you starting your day right here.

I got a question for you.

If you're Sean Duffy and I can already hear the crowd out there.

Okay, I'll try again.

If you're Sean Duffy.

And as transportation secretary, there have already been four significant airplane crashes in your first four weeks at the helm.

Is it really the best course of action to be picking a fight online with Hillary Clinton?

Is that really the best use of your time, especially as you're now welcoming in people from Elon Musk's minions to poke around and.

Do God knows what to our safety systems in the tower just something to think about to get the day started here On this Tuesday morning, we'll talk a bit about that.

We'll have Brittany Merlot's cold cold forecast coming up in just a moment here as well We'll also talk about how the world's richest man who has been taking a wrecking ball to American stability Is now using his checkbook in an effort to buy the Wisconsin Supreme Court for the far right in the spring election

We'll have details on that new effort, even as voters are taking to the polls today for primary elections in other races, including state superintendent to public instruction.

In our second hour, we will talk to Lincoln County dairy farmer Hans Brighton Moser and we'll talk about federal spending.

Now look, it's really easy to attack federal spending.

because there's so many ways that taxpayers make a difference and improve our nation, but maybe in ways that don't directly benefit you.

Let me give you an example, and this is where Hans comes in.

It's easy to criticize the federal government for sometimes paying farmers not to grow crops on some land.

I mean, if you're not familiar with farming, that sounds like an easy setup for a joke, right?

But then you learn that that is to help prevent fertilizer runoff or polluted streams or loss of topsoil.

Suddenly it makes more sense.

Wisconsin farmers have been signing up for those payments so that they have healthy water, healthy land.

Now they're learning they're going to miss out on tens of thousands of dollars this year that they were counting on as income for their farm.

because Elon Musk is just willy-nilly canceling contracts.

Can he even do that?

We'll talk to Hans Brayton Moser about that.

And why overall, it's just short-sighted to criticize spending if you don't know the whole story.

So we've got that, chat homes and more coming up along the way.

And of course, you can find us here always by phone or by text at 855-75 Civic, 855-752.

4842 or you can put a comment in the comment section of Facebook as Mary does here as well.

So thank you very much for talking about that.

Mary talks about the Satiside Program for Farmers and we appreciate that.

You can also email the show radio at upnorthnewswi.com.

From Brittany Merlone, we'll hear from her in an hour, but she writes that an extreme cold warning is in effect

for northwest and north central parts of the state until 10 o'clock this morning for wind chills of 25 to 35 below zero.

A cold weather advisory blankets the rest of the state for wind chills of minus 15 to minus 25.

It is some of the coldest temperatures of the season, but then a big warm up is heading our way for next week.

So here's Brittany's state forecast for this morning, mostly sunny statewide.

but frigid single digits for high temperatures statewide today with the northwest wind at 10 to 15 partly cloudy tonight still very cold lows of 10 below in the north five below in the south and a northwest wind at 10 to 15 miles an hour temperatures right now i'd normally say at the bus stop but pretty much every school district around our part of the state is closed because of the cold weather uh here on lake wasota it's 15 below right now

In Hayward it's 27 below zero.

Amory is 19 below.

Wausau 13 below.

Wisconsin Rapids you're at 19 below zero.

La Crosse minus 14.

Green Bay minus 11.

Madison's at 10 below.

Milwaukee's at 7 below.

And it's also 7 below at Radio Park and Racine where we won't come in.

One Greg Bach who is properly layered today as you really need to be if you're

Heading out the door at all.

And I don't just mean the layer of the beard and the glasses, but there's a T-shirt and a zip up.

Is that a hoodie?

Uh-huh.

Okay.

Got the hoodie working as well.

Got the hoodie always going.

Oh yeah, guys.

I see the strings.

Rock and

roll in a hoodie.

I was wearing a hoodie.

I'm a hoodie fan.

I remember when...

Hoodies were first more of the fashion accessory they are now.

You know, they're pretty basic.

You know, remember, there was just basically, you know, gym sweats and somebody thought to attach a hood.

You know, Bill Belichick, the football coach, made them look so sexy.

Yeah,

especially

the ones that were like, look, they were eaten by rats.

And he'd cut the sleeves off with them.

And then that, you know, they got looking better.

And I've got almost, well, almost a half a dozen now that I really enjoy.

And when you're

like when I was moving snow the other day.

It's not that I don't have a hat, I've got a hat, but having that hoodie is just really nice because you work up a sweat when you're out shoveling and pushing snow and everything.

The hoodie is just the right thing to have under that jacket.

I think if I had to go through the entire house and find all the hoodies, I'd probably be up around 50.

Wow.

And they're a varying sizes, Pat.

So some of them do not get worn anymore.

Oh,

I got it.

Some of them have been

common, commandeered by Bridget never to be worn by me again.

So, but yeah, it's a hoodie is, is a, is a, is a necessary part of my wardrobe.

Oh yeah.

And for anybody today venturing out, just again, make sure you don't forget anything that could protect your ears or your hands.

You just, you don't want to take a chance today with this kind of cold weather, which I'm, I'm ready to be done with.

Me too.

I'm going, I'm over,

I'm over, when it's 10 below zero in Racine, I can only imagine, well now you've

told me,

but like what it's, what it's like in the mid and northern parts of the state.

And I just, whoa.

Yes.

And that's with, you know, thankfully, thankfully he's put in quotation marks, you know, the wind is at 10 to 15 miles an hour.

It's not one of those days where it's howling at, you know, 20 plus like it was in, in Toronto yesterday when that small plane tried to land coming from the Twin Cities.

And again, we're, we're speculating out loud.

I want to make that clear, but they said the, you know, it was a gust, you know, it was gusty winds out there at like 20 to 30 miles an hour.

And it probably would not take much on an icy ride.

runway for a gust of wind to tip that wing just enough to scrape the runway and then then you go spinning.

But the the safety measures I heard them talking about compared to how airplanes used to be built, like there are these breakaway bolts now so that the wings actually come off by design instead of slicing through the fuselage, you know, and things like that.

The seats are built better so that they don't like fly off the frame and

That's how everybody lived.

Everybody, you look at that thing and you go, how, how did people walk away?

And you realize they're building these things better than ever.

So why not have Sean Duffy and Elon Musk in charge of airline safety moving forward?

I feel perfectly safe.

The road rules guys and the rocket to Mars guy exploding rocket guy.

Yeah.

What could possibly go wrong?

And, and in the midst of all that,

is Sean Duffy putting out a tweet about welcoming Elon Musk and his douche team of young Minions, you know, work on the airline system.

And, you know, Hillary Clinton aptly notes that a lot of these people that Musk is bringing in that they're not old enough to rent a car.

you know, much less, I mean, legally, cannot rent the car.

Oh, oh, he'll even chop, chop, chop.

Yeah, get him.

And of course, that was such a triggering thing to the secretary of transportation that he had to take time on that rather than, you know, the very serious work that we are expecting him to be doing right now, but.

Good luck.

That's what I got to say about that.

Um, and I'm not, I'm not saying that to anybody other than current FAA employees and anybody who's traveling moving forward.

And I will still continue to travel just not with the confidence that I used to have.

So

here's, can I call the road rule guide and ask him how the, how the air is today?

Cause I'm scared.

Uh,

Perhaps I should move on to other matters.

Oh, wait a minute.

Here's one.

The acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration has stepped down because of the Elon Musk team requesting access to Social Security recipient information.

Uh, the acting commissioner, Michelle King is leaving the agency with more than 30 years of service after she refused to provide Musk's doge staffers with the access to sensitive information.

Uh, look, first off, I still have a problem with newsrooms starting with the AP.

Because this is an AP story I'm looking at right now.

When you just simply put out there without quotation marks or explanation, when you talk about Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, okay, not a department.

It's not a real thing.

You know, it's not a cabinet level agency.

It is a, how would you describe a rogue task force?

You know, it's a gang.

Yeah, it's a

nerd gang.

Yeah, it really is.

It's just a gaggle of dudes who who the president likes.

I mean, yes, they have an official website.

That's it.

Yeah, and to you're giving them more credibility than I think you would again I say this all the time if if just imagine how you would treat it with somebody else in there not named Donald Trump if you if you had you know a Hillary Clinton a Barack Obama Joe Biden, but even a George HW Bush or somebody

Saying they're creating a department and just letting it go through agencies like a virus You know firing the people who like I don't know safeguard our nuclear weapons and things like that I mean you'd be all over that saying who who are these people under what authority and instead our Too many of our newsrooms these days just calmly report.

Oh the Department of Government Efficiency is here.

That's not a real thing.

No, not a thing.

No and we are

We're all saying well, you know, it's it just is what it is No find out we're gonna find a

way too late.

No, I refuse to accept it is what it is it should

be

unelected man and his his gang of nerd goons in It's just you're you're absolutely right I completely agree with you and the more I think about the way the press Handles these stories the more angry and the right is mad at the AP for some reason

Oh,

yeah, because they won't say Gulf of America.

Oh, that's right.

Because that's important.

Because that's where, yeah, that's where they're picking their fight.

Well, let's break this down to a more of a Wisconsin level.

When we come back from the break, we'll talk about Elon Musk now wanting to use his checkbook for the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.

That's coming up next.

We're up north.

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A little bit of spillover for today's history lesson coming up in a half hour here on Up North News Radio.

The Buckingham's kind of a drag hit number one on this week in 1967.

So just about 58 years ago was the number one song for two weeks.

More coming up in 30 minutes.

Here on this Tuesday morning, February 18th, it is election day.

Get out and vote.

Polls will be open at seven o'clock and we'll close at eight o'clock.

Let's do a little sports first before we get back to political news.

Just a couple of quick notes that the Wisconsin Badger Men's basketball team hosts Illinois tonight.

Coverage begins at 630 on stations across the Civic Media Radio Network and on the Civic Media app.

Head over to civicmedia.us to learn more.

The Badger Men are ranked 16th in the country.

The Marquette Men 18th ranked and they are hosting Seton Hall tonight.

Again, for the election, head over to myvote.wi.gov if you'd like to learn more about voting.

And that includes the Department of Public Instruction State Superintendent race.

There are three candidates and only the top two that get votes today will advance to the April 1 election.

And so we have interviewed the candidates here.

There's been ample coverage.

You can find more over at upnorthnewswi.com and civicmedia.us to learn more.

Cast the vote because again this is going to be a very important seat that will be decided on April 1st along with the state supreme court race.

that will be run between Susan Crawford, a Dane County Judge, and Brad Schimmel, the Waukesha County Judge and former Republican Attorney General.

And that takes us back to Elon Musk, the world's richest man.

By the way, when we say that, how much is he worth?

Just take a guess.

Do you have any idea how much Elon Musk is actually worth as of today?

Let me give you a little history.

In 1987, so 38 years ago now,

is when Forbes started its first list of the world's wealthiest individuals.

And they found at that time 140 billionaires, including 44, 44 billionaires here in the US 38 years ago.

The wealthiest folks on that list had amassed something north of $10 billion in total worth.

Today, Elon Musk and his personal piggy bank has $400 billion.

He has Tesla.

He has what used to be Twitter.

He has SpaceX.

He now has the keys to the White House and now he'd like to add the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Of course, it's not like most folks will even notice because look, if you had things your way, wouldn't you think that if Elon Musk wants to run three quarters of a million dollars in ads for our Supreme Court race, you'd maybe see him on camera or at least a

a note at the bottom saying these ads supporting Brad Schimmel are paid for by Elon Musk, or these ads supporting Brad Schimmel are paid for by a guy who's got $400 billion lying around.

But no, starting Thursday, what folks will see are ads run by a group called Building America's Future.

And then of course, there's another familiar billionaire who's jumping into the Supreme Court race to a

Prop up Schimmel that of course would be Dickie line through a pack again with another one of those generic names fair courts America So when you see fair courts America and building America's future and you see the attack ads against Susan Crawford You'll understand that they're there to get Brad Schimmel elected This is all because of an awful US Supreme Court ruling in 1976 called Buckley versus VA Buckley versus Vallejo

And that law equates money with free speech, figuring you and I should have the freedom to spend whatever money we want if we want to make political speech through TV ads and other contributions.

Well, how many billionaires were there in the US in 1976 when the court decided that case?

The answer is one.

Now, it's pretty fair to say that the justices at that time couldn't conceive of a time when in this country right now there are 800 billionaires, including one worth $400 billion, who could help a fellow rich guy win the White House, support far-right anti-democracy political parties around the world.

And now it's planning to buy a state Supreme Court seat that would eviscerate the kinds of laws that protect you and me and all of us from predatory billionaires.

That thing we used to call an aristocracy.

It's funny how these words just don't seem to resonate beyond the history books anymore.

Aristocracy, kleptocracy, oligarchy.

It's like the world's wealthy and powerful figured out at some point that as long as they don't look like old oil paintings of robber barons with big, bushy mustaches, folks will look at Elon Musk and say, oh, he's just like one of us.

He just has more money.

No.

Like the robber barons of old.

Elon Musk is is jumping into the state supreme court race seeking the same kinds of things we saw with the Getys, the Rockefellers, the Morgans, the Astors, the Melons, the Vanderbilts.

They want more power.

They want the power that you should have as a voter and as a consumer.

They want to take land whenever they want it.

They want to be able to pollute land and water.

They want to hire yes men and fire good people for the crime of being honest.

The super wealthy power seekers then and now, they want to limit your consumer choices, your job choices, your ballot choices.

They want to limit your ability to get financially comfortable so that you have to rely on the wages where they set them, rely on their charity to fund schools, rely on their employment, their products, and even their candidates.

The Elon Musk's of today can throw unlimited money into elections like the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, and they don't have to make it clear that they're the ones running the ads.

So it's up to the rest of us to tell you about it.

Being a voter is harder than ever, which is odd considering there's more quote unquote information out there than ever, but so much of it is wrong or misleading or just an outright lie.

And that's by design.

The far right wants

voters to toss up their hands and simply not vote.

And then they figure if they can fool enough of the others and motivate them to vote for something like law and order, though when, even though the law and order they seek has less to do with you and much more with protecting their power.

So that's today's civics lesson.

Know who's paying for those political ads and why they're spending so much money.

The world's richest guy probably isn't looking out for you

when he's buying political ads up north.

When we come back, we're going to talk to Christina Laurie.

She's our community editor here at Up North News, put together a daily newsletter, get it up northnewswi.com, and we're going to talk about the difference in values.

Wisconsin values versus DC values.

That's on Up North News Radio from Lake Wissota on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Hey, we're back now with the Uplift on Uptown News Radio, which means Christina Laurie is here, our community editor, newsletter editor, and a poster of so many positive things that make Wisconsin an awesome place to live in.

Christina, how are you?

I'm great.

How are

you?

Good.

Nice to have you here.

Talking a bit about the difference between Washington and Wisconsin.

not the state, the DC is what I'm talking about here.

And a new administration wanting to go in some other directions and those directions are, here's my big word of the day, antithetical to Wisconsin values.

And I think you would agree that that's a good setup and where you want to go with all these differences.

Well, not just Wisconsin values just values period and it also seems antithetical to the entire value that Trump ran his second campaign on make America healthy again because Health starts at the most basic level getting those Maslow's hierarchy of needs met and there are many people I it's it's hard to believe this in 2025, but there are many people who do not have enough food to eat and

especially we see that in our school systems.

And one of the areas that Trump is looking to make some extra room in our budgets in is by slashing federal funding for free school meals for children.

And for many kids, including 20% of kids in Wisconsin, that might be their only meals that they get on any particular day.

So if they're not able to eat at school,

then they're not able to focus and we don't know when we send them home if they're going to eat then either.

But I am here like you prefaced with some reassuring news because we're of course run by Governor Tony Evers, a former educator, superintendent, principal, state superintendent.

There's nothing he loves more than schools and keeping kids safe and fed.

So many

High schools here, also some middle schools, they have locally funded programs that are free for all students to get free snacks in between classes.

It's something so simple, but for example, at Madison East, just down the street from where I live, they have a school market where between any passing period, any student can drop in and they can pick up fruit, some pretzels, some chips, sandwiches.

you know, it ranges the type of food that they can grab.

But two points to note here.

First, this is not federally funded, so this will not be impacted by what Trump does or doesn't do.

It's a partnership between the Madison School District and Second Harvest Food Bank, which is a regional food pantry that serves a lot of southern Wisconsin.

They do absolutely fantastic work.

And the second element here that's so important is that it is free for all students.

So we remove any sort of disparities or what's the word I'm looking for?

Stigma.

Exactly.

Stigma of kids, you know, if you're poor, you probably already self-conscious about that and you don't want to be the lone student going to grab a meal.

So that is why it's important.

There's going to be people.

I've already heard them calling out.

Why are we paying for rich kids food?

We're paying for kids food.

Kids are not rich.

They're not the ones making money in their family.

This is all about the children.

Yeah.

And again, you take away that stigma.

I remember it well from, you know, needing, you know, free lunches as a kid and the different colored lunch tickets and things like that.

but also the administrative paperwork, the processing and all that, that you don't have to worry about anymore if you just feed everybody.

It just seems to make sense rather than trying to cut it like some people in Washington want to do.

What I will say again, that year after year after year, folks in the legislature have tried to pass the Healthy School Meals for All Bill.

State Representative Francesca Hong was on the show a couple weeks back talking about it.

And I kept thinking, you know, how is this thing voted down?

And she said, no, no, no, the bill was never given a hearing by the majority party.

It was never even allowed for people to come in and talk about the importance of healthy school meals for all kids, much less get a vote or anything like that.

So that is still something we can rectify.

You know, Governor Evers has been a leader on this.

He did cite it specifically in the state of the state.

But now we just need some more folks in the assembly and the Senate to kind of move this thing along and show the difference between our values and the, you know, the budget slashers in Washington.

Well, of course, they don't want to call it up for a vote because they don't want to be on record saying they voted against children.

What kind of morals does that show?

And also for anyone who's hiding behind, oh, but it's too expensive.

We can cut budgets elsewhere.

Children should not be the first thing on the cutting block.

Yeah, I can think of certain high-end tax cuts that might come to mind, you know, if I were going to cut something

like that.

While we're talking about food, I thought I'd shift over to egg prices since you can't, they're just, they're going to be guaranteed in the headlines for the rest of the year.

A lot of that is Trump's own doing because he campaigned heavily on cutting prices.

On day one, we're going to see the price of eggs drop in half.

And what have they done?

They've already

gone up 20%, they're expected to go up 20% more by the end of the year.

Now this story is probably not where you expected me to go with this.

I am going to kind of defend Trump in a way as well as Biden.

The president is not responsible for egg prices.

We saw Republicans go hard on Joe Biden on this and now we're seeing some Democrats flip and blame Trump for this.

Again, the

The reverse blame of Democrats at Trump is a little bit warranted since he campaigned so heavily on being able to do this, which he shouldn't have been able to do.

But presidents do not control prices like this.

If they could, why would Biden not have already fixed them?

He was trying to get a Democrat into the White House.

If he had some kind of lever that was so easy, why would he have not lowered prices for you?

So keep that in the back of your mind.

Well, we do, right,

right.

But what is so just factually what is causing the rise in egg prices was the avian flu.

It's killed 17.2 million egg laying hens in November and December, which is almost the number of hens that are killed by the virus in an entire calendar year, any other year.

So that's why it just keeps increasing so quickly.

And this is really unprecedented.

We've had the flu before, but not to this extent.

But I am here with some helpful information because I like eggs.

I love doing breakfast for dinner.

Scrambled eggs are a big key component of that for me.

And, you know, you can buy the just egg in those cartons, but

it's

not the same as fresh eggs.

So if you're looking for the cheapest eggs here in Wisconsin, Trader Joe's Aldi Walmart and Target's prices.

are all around 30 cents an egg, and they are expected to stay there just based on the quantity of eggs that those stores purchase.

So just, I mean, you can buy them elsewhere.

You could also buy them from your local CSA, a local farmer that you know, they might be a little bit more pricey that way, but you're also supporting your neighbors, and you know, you're getting the absolute freshest

eggs.

It is, again, an unfortunate thing that a serious crisis

pushes people toward more homegrown food.

But I recall this back in 2020 as well, that when all the large meat packing plants had to be shut down because of COVID outbreaks, it

it forced a lot of people to recognize that there are, you know, meat packing and other processing, you know, smaller ones, family running sometimes, in some cases, you know, around Wisconsin.

And the same goes here for eggs as well, instead of just waiting for the the great big, you know, processors to deliver to the grocery store, because I've

I've been to the grocery store recently and I've seen some empty shelves where the eggs used to be.

But if you can find a local supplier, you may actually find your new permanent supplier and realize that there's still so much home grown around Wisconsin that we could be putting on our tables.

Absolutely.

And just something else I wanted to bring up too because equally equally challenging to I've seen the headlines about eggs everywhere And then the headlines about donald trump pulling out of the world health organization Yes, I want to go to

that next right

not being the top priority instead of you know He said the prices were number one on his to-do list but instead on day one He pulled us out of the world health organization What that did just to put in the most basic terms is that it froze all federal funding?

to the National Institutes of Health, which does research into cancer and other diseases.

And I've seen a lot of Republicans trying to back this up and just say, well, it's just a pause.

We're going to assess everything, and then you can judge what happens next.

Cancer doesn't pause in people who are fighting it.

If you're part of a clinical research trial, you can't just

Pause the experiment.

Has no one ever been in science class before?

That's not how it works.

Time is of the essence here.

And you're really playing around with people's lives.

But I am here, as always, with a tiny bit of good news.

So research trials that are already underway at Wisconsin hospitals, there are a ton happening at UW Hospital in Madison.

Those will and are continuing.

For now, that's just the key asterisk there because

If the pause continues, this could impact scheduled research trials in the future.

But all of the researchers, doctors, medical experts at Wisconsin's hospitals are continuing their trials right now.

Just to share a little bit of personal news, this is just such a personal issue for me because my grandma died of pancreatic cancer.

That's one of the deadliest cancers in the country.

It has less than a 10% five year survival rate and it only recently increased that number for a long time.

It was less than 5%, which is just, I mean, it's basically a death sentence.

And many of the trials that are happening at UW hospital are related to pancreatic cancer and they're not long shots.

They're not trying to cure the disease because that does seem so far off.

Many of these trials are just trying to make

the disease more manageable and increase people's longevity, make them more comfortable as they're in their final days.

And it's really inhumane that this is what is being targeted.

There's no really other way to put it.

People don't have the luxury of time when their life is on the line.

And Trump is really playing with people's lives right now.

The targets don't make sense.

Here's another one.

capping insulin prices.

Again, insulin costs so very little to produce and yet big drug companies for a time were jacking the prices outrageously until, you know, President Biden and others, you know, caught wind of it and said, we got to do something about this.

And you've got President Trump saying, you know, making moves to get rid of that cap.

But again, the reality is a little different in Wisconsin where at least there's some

some people in the state capital who, you know, would like to set us apart from where Trump wants to take insulin prices.

Exactly.

The state lawmakers are trying to set their own state-level cap, so we won't have to worry about what's going on in the federal government.

But this goes back to the entire thing.

I've seen this happen from both sides, and it seems this is like one of those cases where both sides use this argument when it matters most of them, but

just goes back to the crux of the issue that medicine should not be big business.

People should not be getting rich off of whether or not they choose to save people's lives.

You should morally do the right thing and it's really frustrating to see our leaders at the highest level not having that happen.

Which is why I'd like to see this this insulin cap proposal by legislative Democrats again.

Bring it up for a vote.

Let's see where people stand on this.

Exactly.

It puts their morals on the line.

And speaking of morals, the final thing I wanted to bring up was what's going on with immigration, because this really does come around to a lot of morals.

First of all, just to debunk any sort of myth going out there, no one, no Democrat wants a criminal to stay in the United States.

That's not what we're arguing.

And it's

amazing that we still have to say that out loud.

But yes, it did.

So we've noted that.

Yes, we've noted that.

And also, if you would remember, President Obama was often called the deporter in chief because he deported a record number of immigrants who are criminals.

So they are not welcome in America.

We obviously want to keep Americans safe.

That said, another reason that you might be seeing prices slowly inching up

instead of down at the grocery store is because many of America's farm workers are undocumented immigrants and because of all the threats that the current president is posing a lot of them are not showing up at work because of fear again not because they don't want to work they want to work and they're afraid that if they show up at work their place of work will be raided and they'll be sent back home to an unsafe place now these are people that are the absolute

hardest workers in America, they are paying taxes on their wages.

And because they're undocumented, they're never going to get any of the benefits from those taxes.

They're not going to be able to collect Social Security someday, like all of us.

And they've probably going to have worked a lot harder physically than us within their lifetime.

We're also doing a crucial service that a lot of US-born people do not want to do.

So they deserve our respect.

they do.

And by their departures, again, it's not just, you know, something that you'll feel in our food supply, but fiscally as well.

Christina Loree, community editor, get the newsletter at uppermostnewswi.com that she puts together.

Click subscribe in the top banner.

Thank you, Christina.

Have a great day.

Thank you, Pat.

We'll be back in just a moment.

You're up for

it.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.

Secret, secret, no, this is no secret.

It's Dennis DeYoung's birthday.

He is 78 years old today.

Born in Chicago, the Styx co-founder wrote and sang seven of their top 10 hits, including Mr. Roboto there along with Babe, Show Me the Way, The Best of Times, Don't Let It End, Lady,

comes stale away, uh, all from Dennis DeYoung, born this day.

Dan Hagen from WJFW News Watch 12 and Rhinelander joins us as well.

Mr. Hagen, good morning.

How are you?

I'm doing well.

One time my dad went to a sticks concert and he was yelling, Dennis, Dennis, Dennis looked at him and went like this.

With the two thumbs up.

Nice.

Wow.

Hey, you are, uh, properly tired for the weather here for the, uh, ridiculously cold temperatures, but also for an upcoming event.

That's right.

The American Berkabiner is coming up on Saturday the 51st one I will be competing aiming for my 11th Berkabiner.

My dad is aiming for his 28th He's beating every single time.

So this could be my year.

We'll see.

Well, not this time not this time.

I mean, I

got $50 on it

Yeah, you can bet on anything now.

It's crazy.

I got an app that says, sure enough, old man Hagan.

He's going down this year.

Yeah.

Well, it's a baby boomer versus millennials

this year.

Old man Hagan.

He's younger than me, isn't he?

How old was your dad?

He's born in 58.

Oh, okay.

So he's just a little bit older, but still.

Making it sound like he's he's gonna be competing in a in a wheelchair with skis on it.

No, he's I mean if you met the

guy he will be doing that

someday Yeah, let's see let's go with more today's history The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain was published this day in 1885 The late director John Hughes was born this day in 1950 so many movies including the breakfast club

Hey, hey, hey, hey.

Wow.

Well, Dan

knows it.

All right, Dan knows it.

Dan's got the fist raised, just like at the end of the movie there.

He was the director, producer, and or writer of the Breakfast Club, 16 Candles, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Plains Trains and Automobiles.

He also wrote Mr. Mom, Pretty and Pink, National Lampoon's Vacation, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and more.

and was lost way too soon back in 2009, but I mean, if you were just gonna do a time capsule of the 80s, just on John Hughes, you'd get a feel for the 80s and 90s, without a doubt.

Going way back now in the movies.

This day in 1938, Bob Hope was in the big broadcast of 1938.

That was the name of the movie, a musical, and introduced his signature song, Thanks for the Memory.

Birthdays today also include country singer Juice Newton.

She is 73 today.

I like Juice Newton.

She had Angel of the Morning, the sweetest thing.

Break it to me gently.

She is 73 today.

And then there's Yoko Ono.

She is 92 years old today.

Wow.

Yeah.

Oh, this one should have been.

I should have had this with John Hughes talking about the Breakfast Club.

Molly Ringwald.

Molly Ringwald is 57 today.

Again, that's one of those birthdays where some people just close their laptop and walk into the ocean.

Wait.

Is that Yoko

Ono or hers?

No, you'll go and I was going to live forever.

Yeah.

You know, mystical reasons that will explain off air.

But Molly Ringwald being 57 that and Vanna White, 68 years old today and still work in the show.

Yeah.

Press those letters.

Well, you know, it's at some point.

Uh, no, you're pointing.

You're right.

That's all she's not bad.

If you're out there, I think what you do is spectacular.

You're American treasure and I don't doubt your

talent.

You're making me have to be a villain, Greg.

All I'm saying is simple tasks.

He's just saying, she's just pointing.

So

just lazy.

That's it.

Fana white is just, no, she's a national treasure.

That's right.

And by the way, I'm on her side for all those years of getting really stiff when it comes to the pay disparity.

But between her and Pat, say Jack, that was just wrong.

It's why she's still working and Pat is sitting poolside this morning with his avocado toast.

John Travolta is 71 years old today.

Well, this car is automatic.

It's systematic.

It's high

dramatic.

I love how they are just so perfectly describing my 1973 Plymouth Fury.

It was rust.

No, I'm sorry, it was green with rust, but it was more rust than green.

I was looking for these clips yesterday for you, and I was watching the video from this, and I'm like, how were we ever scared of the teabirds?

What

a

bunch of weirdo dudes who I'll look a little

too old for high school mice, but add just a little bit Yeah, let's see actress civil shepherd to 75 dr. Dre is 60 today.

Oh boy.

Here we go

See

now Dan's Dan's got the head bounce coin now we're back into his generation

So let's let's go ripping right out of it and let's go play the Tennessee waltz for to mark the birthday of Yeah, this is gonna make your head spin the Tennessee waltz because it was co-written by Wisconsin native Pee Wee King Yeah, Dr. Dre do a version of this, huh?

Pee Wee King was born in Abrams, Wisconsin He was born Julius Kaczynski

And he co-wrote this hit, along with the Joe Stafford hit, You Belong to Me.

This is National Drink Wine Day.

This is National Battery Day.

National Travel Africa Day and National Pluto Day because that planet, yeah, planet, I said it, was discovered this day in 1930.

You

out there, Neil deGrasse Tyson?

We're starting something with you.

Actually, it's a dwarf planet.

Well, we've lost Dan today.

He's gone

forever.

I like how he's pushing up his imaginary nerd glasses as he was doing that.

That was perfect.

Perfectly placed.

And I think this is not a reflection on Dan, but I haven't gotten a comment like this on Facebook for a while.

A comment from a place called Mike's Garage.

You guys really are as stupid as you seem.

Well, at

least we're living up to what you believe we are.

So

dreams come true.

I think that was just his way of cheering you on, Dan, in the Berkabiner.

So thank you for your time, sir.

All right.

Good to see you back.

Good to see you, Greg.

All right.

Have a great day.

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