You're listening to Civic Media.
You can tune into any of our live shows on any radio station across the state with the Civic Media app.
Find us in your phone's app store and listen anytime,
anywhere.
Now, live from our Lake Wissota studio, here's the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Breitler.
Well, hey there, Wisconsin.
Good morning.
It is six minutes after six o'clock on this Friday morning, February 21st, 2025, and it's another beautiful morning to have you here up north.
Live from Lake Wissota, from wherever you're listening, across the Civic Media Radio Network.
You might be listening on the app or watching us on Facebook or YouTube or or catching us by podcast We appreciate you starting your day right here.
I've got a question for you Why is this boy and sure in short sleeves on a Friday morning when it's again below zero and I've I've just decided I was gonna go with the whole Brewers.
I've got the Brewers Hawaiian shirt
But I thought I would save that for actually opening day.
So I'm having spring thoughts.
The Brewers are getting set for their first spring training game in Arizona.
I will be in Arizona next week.
I will not see any spring training games.
I'm there on a courier newsroom work function.
Basically, they're going to lock us in a hotel conference room for three days.
I believe the the subject line was the beatings will continue until morale improves or something like that.
So Greg Bach will fill in capably along with a whole assortment of characters and I do mean characters.
Luke Mathers on Monday, Dan Schaefer on Tuesday, Chad Holmes on Wednesday, Todd Alba on
Thursday and yours truly will be back next Friday.
But Greg's working the whole week long next week because that's the kind of stud.
He is Mr. Bach.
Good
morning.
After having a worker for calling you.
I
was trying to convince you to just do replays or best ofs or prerecords.
Oh, yeah.
We give the people live, live, live and local or whatever slogan we want to use.
And
then Pat's
never
allowed
to go anywhere again.
Again, for anybody who missed it, just to have a weird little coincidence, I booked last week's vacation months and months ago.
And then a couple of weeks back, we get this note of, all right, all you career people, we're gathering on this particular week.
So I'm not really popular around the radio station right now, but
I'm in two warm places for two different weeks in February.
Okay.
Although I am going to be rather annoyed if I can't get just a little time away to maybe peek in on a little brewer's spring training.
If you do, if you end up at spring training.
Let me know.
I want to get a hat.
I'll pay you back.
Okay.
Cause I don't know at this point.
This is like, this is a year five of me wanting to go to spring, spring training.
It was a spring break.
Oh, I see.
I'd never been.
I would love to.
So I'm, uh, and now that I think of it, I really should have.
See the the company made the because it's a whole network wide thing The company the company used a travel agency for the for the airline tickets.
Yeah, if I had done it I'd gone a couple of days earlier You know and maybe gone to spring training games and things but yeah, I didn't think about that in time So now I'm gonna have to play a little hooky from the company retreat.
We'll see how that goes.
Yeah
Uh, yeah.
So what's happening at the, uh, that's a laughing tap this weekend.
Laughing tap.
We got two shows.
Oh yeah.
Well, we have had one had like Chelsea hood from Chicago.
We got two shows happening this weekend, one Friday and one Saturday.
You can get tickets at laughing tap.com $20 online, $25 at the door.
No drink minimums.
And we just put out a press release yesterday celebrating the 20th anniversary of our parent company.
So.
Really?
Yeah, 20 years.
You
have a parent company too?
Yep.
Milwaukee Comedy is our parent company.
They are the overseers, the producers of the Milwaukee Comedy Festival, the Laughing Tap and all of our remote shows.
Our remote shows being the oldest of every... Well, actually, I know the Comedy Festival being the oldest, which celebrates its 20th year this year.
Nice.
Yeah, so come on down.
It's a year of celebration.
That's right.
Bring your green hat, Snoop-a-loop.
I like it.
Coming up on the program today, just our usual great slate of Friday guests.
We'll have Courier Newsrooms, Kea Vakil joining us, along with another one of our Courier colleagues, Casey Harrison from the Nebaton.
It's the outlet for Nevada, you figured that out.
So we'll be talking about some of this week's headlines, of course.
Then in our second hour, former U.S.
Attorney Jim Santel along with journalists Mark Jacob and Jennifer Schulze.
And then we'll talk to Dan Schumacher.
We'll talk a little sports, but it's also going to be a bit of a bittersweet conversation.
As you know, Dan is the athletic director up at Northland College in Ashland, which announced late Wednesday that they will be closing their doors at the end of this academic year.
We have talked to Dan previously about the challenges that such a small liberal arts college faces in this day and age.
And despite all kinds of efforts over the past year, it looks like they'll be closing down at the end of the academic year here.
So we'll talk to him a bit about that as well.
Brittany Merleau will be here in less than an hour, but her state forecast says
much more comfortable winter temperatures are in place now with even warmer weather in sight.
With a mild weekend ahead, it also drags in a wintry mix of rain and snow to the state starting Sunday.
So the state forecast looks like this for today mostly sunny and mild statewide.
Highs will be in the low to mid twenties and the wind will be out of the southwest at 10 to 15 miles an hour.
Tonight, partly cloudy and crisp with a low near 10 and southwest winds of around 10 miles an hour.
Temperatures at the bus stop are back below zero in too many communities around Wisconsin.
It's three below here on Lake Wissota, 11 below zero in Hayward.
Amory's at minus one, so is Wasaw.
Wisconsin Rapids is at minus three, La Crosse is at two above, Green Bay one below, Madison's at four degrees, and both at Milwaukee's Mitchell Field and Radio Park in Racine, it is 13 degrees above zero right now.
There was a big hockey game for the NHL players.
Instead of the All-Star game,
And Greg, you know that the, except for baseball, baseball's all-star game is fine.
It has its hiccups occasionally, but they can have an all-star game, whereas the NFL, they can't.
The NBA can't.
It's just an exhibition.
The NFL's finally given up on it entirely.
The NBA all-star game, the score is always like 205, 2099.
And I love the NHL's idea that says, look, instead of an all star game, let's have what they're calling the four nations face off, which was the US, Canada, Finland and Sweden, four nations with the bulk of the NHL players.
And let's have a tournament.
And it turned out to be over this past week, incredibly spirited.
Like last
week in
Robin play, the US, Canada game had.
three fights in the first nine seconds of the game,
okay?
And the U.S.
and Canada faced off last night in the championship game, and I went to bed before it was done.
It was 1-1 at that point, first intermission.
It turns out that in the end, Connor McDavid scored an overtime to give Canada a three to two win, or as the AP story says, when they played O Canada for the second time that night, there were no American fans left in the arena to boo because fans of both nations have been booing each other's national anthems.
But yeah, to put it another way, as the AP writes, it was the 51st state three, or Canada's 11th province.
To Prime Minister Justin Trudeau posted on Twitter, you can't take our country and you can't take our game.
So it really is
true.
We can say all we want, but like the biggest hockey fan in America is nowhere near the biggest hockey fan in Canada.
Yes, not even close.
And there are big hockey fans in the US.
Don't get me wrong, but it's I'm not going to, you know,
it's a rivalry, but it's it's most definitely a a friendly rivalry.
You know, it's not like we're taking on, you know, the Soviet Union at Lake Placid in 1980, you know, it's nothing like that.
But both teams really wanted both fan bases.
I mean, they were hyped.
I was watching some of the the pregame and, you know, the fans in Boston from all over the country, all over both countries.
I mean, they were jacked up for this.
It's just a great idea.
It's sad that they won't
do it next year, but that's cause next year will be the winter Olympics.
So it's
my hope.
This, this was a trial run and it looks like it was a huge success.
And I mean, come on, this is the most we've talked about hockey in a long time.
I
think perhaps ever.
Um, and so yeah, next year will be the Olympics, but I, I have a feeling that two years from now, we'll be talking about this again and hopefully it'll be as, as good a tournament.
So it was a really nice midwinter distraction, you know, now that the super bowl's over.
Yeah.
You know, baseball hasn't completely fired up yet.
Well, haven't I feel like the NFL has said they're going to do flag football for exhibition
just for
fun,
which would be
absolutely great to watch.
And honestly, they should do it at like a college field or a high school field, make it real personal and intimate.
But also what could baseball do then?
Like just maybe all exhibition, no actual game.
But the thing is we're talking about
basketball.
We're talking about basketball.
Yeah, I mean, basketball is purely at exhibition.
It's a shooting contest.
I mean, they throw in those skills competitions and things like that.
And that's all fine.
But I mean, I think what you have to do in that one is you and maybe they do this because I don't follow it.
But I think you what you really need is more of like a tournament of three on threes, because then you get that more personal competition, you know,
the only thing and I asked, I think I asked on this show.
Maybe I asked Dan Schaefer on mountain air and air.
I asked what happened.
I know, I know they know how to play at a certain speed for the all-star game, but injuries happen all the time.
You land wrong and you can tear an ACL.
What happens if at the all-star game in basketball, someone has a
Not maybe
a
career ending injury, but something that knocks them out for the rest of the season.
What happens?
Oh, yeah, it happens.
It's always a risk.
They'd also tell you, though, I mean, just life is a risk.
You've had athletes who can't pitch because they hit their thumb with a hammer while they were doing some work in their garage or things like that.
So I
mean, life happens, but you try to minimize those risks.
And I'm sure exhibition games are every general managers and every agents worst nightmare.
you
know, that
something could go wrong in one of those.
I mean, look at, look at Yanis, who missed six games with a strained calf as he makes the transition to
sports
here.
Yanis is back after missing six games.
He scored 23 points and the Bucks rallied for a 116 to 110 victory over the LA Clippers last night.
Milwaukee was missing Bobby Portis.
Portas began serving a 25-game suspension, which is pretty much the rest of the regular season.
After testing positive for the painkiller tramadol, which is a violation of the league's anti-drug program, Portas says he got it mixed up with pterodol, which he was supposed to be taking, but the tramadol is in the opioid family.
And he apologized profusely and said it was an honest mistake.
And we can say all kinds of things about all these drugs with their generic and similar names.
But regardless of what degree that mistake was, it's going to cost the Bucks 25 games with him.
sitting on the bench.
He'll be back for the last four games of the regular season and then the playoffs.
The Bucks will see an old friend of theirs, an old teammate tonight.
They will be in Washington to take on the Wizards, where they will see Chris Middleton, who was recently traded.
We'll catch up on some of the headlines next, wherever you're listening across Wisconsin on this Friday morning when you're here.
You're up north, live from Lake Thota on the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
Alright, I have it on good information from one Greg Bach that this is Jethro Tall.
Yeah.
And I bring it up.
Oh, he already sounds annoyed by this.
Okay.
From the history lesson.
On this weekend in 1989, so what, 36 years ago, the first ever Grammy for best hard rock metal performance was awarded to
Jethro Tull.
This is from their album Crest of the Nave.
What song is this?
This is Steel Monkey.
It's the only single from the album.
Okay.
So this got the Grammy, even though apparently everybody, and I guess they mean everybody, assume that the Grammy was going to go to Metallica's and Justice for All.
So we've heard a little Jethro.
Do you want to play a little Metallica and we can compare?
Tell me folks.
Okay, I'm
with you.
I am so with you on this
Yeah, it was it was so egregious and so controversial that when they finally won the Grammy in 1992 for the black album The first thing they said was on stage Metallica something was of course you expect we have to thank Jethro Tull for not putting out an album this year.
I Mean, I
mean seriously good
Can you can you play a little of the Jethro Toll thing again against Jethro Toll?
But what?
Hard rocket, baby.
Hard rocket synthesizers.
This is not Miami Vice, you know?
No.
OK, so this makes a little bit more sense, though, than 1989 Grammys.
When you consider that at that same show, they also gave out the first ever Grammy for best rap performance.
And here's what won the first Grammy for rap.
This would be will smell
And this is this and the evolution of rap music that was the first one.
Yep This is what won for best rap performance this
year
I mean, the evolution is a little different.
Oh, yeah.
Also, I just take any chance I can to play this song because I love Kendrick Lamar so much.
You know, by the way, yeah, I am really, I'm genuinely meaning to do this being out of the country last week.
We did not, I did not see any of the Super Bowl.
I did not see any Super Bowl commercials and I did not see Kendrick Lamar show.
I have read all about it.
Now that I've read about it, I'm genuinely curious to see it.
Even though I know, I may not necessarily be the target audience, but I want to see this.
The only thing that I've seen of it so far, TikTok, you're just, you're just awful sometimes is, is Kendrick Lamar and somebody else that he was singing with and they're dancing and they're moving up and down, but, uh,
Superimposed over that instead of their music is the is summer lovin from Greece It matches perfectly and I'm just like that's
wrong.
I was I will say this the Super Bowl commercials this year We talked about this.
They were not great.
There was
nothing.
I didn't hear anything I heard nothing.
There
was nothing memorable There was nothing like there was one weird Mountain Dew commercial with seal late was weird.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's it
Yeah, that's it.
And as far as thinking you're not the target audience, I will say this.
And people, they had all their opinions on TikTok and on Instagram about what they thought about Kendrick Lamar, which really came from the point of they just weren't invited to the party, but they were still invited because it was great.
My 79 year old mother-in-law, Patty lives in Mount Pleasant.
She was tapping her foot, bopping her head, and she was enjoying it.
And at one point there's a point where all the dancers,
are wearing the colors of the flag and they make one big American flag.
And she just goes, that's our flag.
And she's just bopping her head.
I'm like, this is for everyone.
This is for everyone.
Great.
Yes.
Good deal.
So yeah, that's that's on my weekend to do this year is to finally get culturally caught up.
would be the way to say it.
Hey, we mentioned yesterday, Courier Newsroom and Up North News are putting together our first ever live event, and that will take place with a panel discussion, a series of discussions about the Wisconsin State Supreme Court election.
That election, of course, is going to be held on April 1st.
So we hope you'll join us at the Overture Center in Madison on Wednesday evening, March 12th.
Doors open at 5.
We'll get the program started at about 5.30.
And we're going to have three 30-minute panel discussions.
One will be how the outcome of this Supreme Court election will affect women's reproductive health rights in Wisconsin.
And we've got some great guests on there, including State Senator Kelder-Royce.
And also Heather Martel, who has shared her very tragic story about needing abortion care when a wanted pregnancy goes tragically wrong.
We will have a panel about the impact on the economy and job creation and the climate and the environment.
And we'll be joined by state representative Francesca Hong and former Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes.
And I believe we're going to get in Melissa Baldoff as well from our weekly climate check feature to talk about that.
And we will talk about education because there are two huge cases that could come before the Wisconsin Supreme Court sometime after this next election.
One is the challenge to Act 10, the anti-union law that has mysteriously been on the books all these years.
Well, not so mysteriously when you consider who was in charge of the court for 15 years.
So we'll talk about that.
And also the lawsuit challenging the voucher schools program, which is now gobbling up north of $700 million a year.
And the outcome of those lawsuits will very much depend upon the makeup of the court.
And with a liberal justice and Walsh Bradley retiring,
That open seat is conservatives only opportunity to take back control of the court for the next few years, because the next seats coming up to defend are a series of conservative seats.
And that's why you see so much money behind Brad Schimmel, the former attorney general during Scott Walker's second term.
so much outside money is coming into the race.
And of course, folks are backing Dane County Judge Susan Crawford as well to keep the court in progressive hands.
So we're going to have a lot to talk about there.
And we will be giving you details soon on what link to click on to go register for tickets.
You will not need your credit card handy.
because the tickets are free.
We would just like to have a nice little crowd there and assuming that we do, we'll also have opportunities for live stream.
We're talking to Civic Media about ways that we can get this to you so that you can listen to all these very wonderful people talking about the importance of voting.
April 1st elections don't often get a huge turnout.
This one's really going to need it for Supreme Court, for Department of Public Instruction, State Superintendent, and for a terrible constitutional question that's on the ballot as well.
Keeva Keel and Casey Harrison from the Nevada of Courier Newsroom.
Coming up next, you're up north.
six thirty-four back on this Friday morning on Up North News Radio and of course that music tells us that Kea McKeel is here from Courier Newsroom.
National political editor Kea, good morning.
How are you?
Are we ever?
And I mean, if things relatively settled down, you know, wildfires, any hurricanes, anything like that out there lately?
No hurricanes, wildfires.
Any you and all the other Eagles fans in LA.
Did you burn down anything like
Crazy, crazy torrent of headlines, which we're covering for Currier Newsroom, not just through Up North News and not just nationally through you, but through all of our 11 state outlets, including one of our newest, the Nevada, which I don't know if you can tell it's in Nevada.
And Casey Harrison joins us from there to tell us more about that.
Casey, good morning.
How are you?
Good morning, Pat.
I am good.
How are you?
Very good.
Thanks for joining us for this.
Can you tell us a little bit about the the nevadon?
You know, how many folks you got on the team?
What's it been like?
And maybe a little about yourself as well.
Yeah, so the Nevada is still a relatively new outfit especially compared to some of the other courier newsrooms But really try to focus my coverage on policy specifically and you know talking about things like affordability Green energy is a really big thing in Nevada, especially during the last presidential administration through like the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law
that Nevada saw billions and honestly it was one of the highest per capita by by a funding basis to receive like something in the to the tune of like billions of dollars in funding so solar projects have gotten to be really big there and of course that's a big thing to watch in the Trump administration as you know Doge and Elon Musk come with a buzz saw to seemingly going from agency to agency but
Yeah, so, you know, try to cover the whole state.
It's a big state, a lot of public lands out there.
And yeah,
but it's it's I like hearing that because again, much like people let's pick on, you know, Chicago or Illinois, people think it's all about Chicago.
People obviously think it's Las Vegas and nothing else.
There's a lot out there from schools and roads, public lands, everything like you said that, you know, needs to be taken care of by a functional state government.
Yeah, no, definitely.
So Las Vegas is about 70% of the state's population.
And so the Clark County School District is the number five school district in the entire country.
So I mean, just lots of different needs from rural all the way up to urban.
And so it's
it's definitely, you know, lawmakers at every level have a kind of unique challenge for them.
Well, yeah, and that gets us into the personal impact, the local impact of everything that's been happening through these first four or five weeks of the Trump administration here.
And, you know, it's part of the focus of Courier Newsroom is, yeah, we're going to tell you what
Donald Trump is doing insane and Elon Musk and Congress and all that but you know where where we really try to take the next step is to localize these stories and talk about the impact on people and on hometowns and of course as you see all of the stories that all the outlets are working on I'm sure you're seeing you know it's gotta be a little tough to go to bed at night and not think about all the different ways that people's lives have been negatively affected over these past you know
30 days or so.
Yeah, I mean, I think there's this misunderstanding a lot of the time, especially, you know, maybe let's say disproportionately among conservatives that the federal workforce is entirely based in DC.
And it's a bunch of like highly college educated liberals who push paper and
30% of the federal workforce is veterans.
Most of it is outside of the DC area.
They exist in every single congressional district in the country.
They are the people who staff our national parks.
They are the people who make sure our food is, you know, we don't have salmonella outbreaks.
They are the people who help make sure our water is clean.
You know, they are everywhere.
And so, you know, there are congressional districts where four to five percent of the labor force is federal workers.
And so,
You know, we are hearing stories every single day.
There are people who work for the VA who've lost their jobs.
There are people who work at a national parks.
There's a gentleman in Iowa who shared his like very heartbreaking story.
There are people all over the place.
And, you know, I think we really take the government for granted.
But the reason most of the time things operate fairly smoothly in day to day life is in a lot of cases because of
the things the government does in the background that you never know about.
So if seniors suddenly stop being able to use Medicare at the doctor's office, if postal service gets delayed, if the VA health care has long wait times, if bridges are fall apart and can't get fixed, if we see a continued spate of like air crashes and more people laid off from the FAA, that is all going to be very directly tied to what's happening.
Yeah, some of these issues predate Trump and Musk.
It's not entirely their fault, everything that goes wrong.
But you can't take a wrecking ball to a workforce of three million people that helps keep the country running and not expect things to start to fall apart.
And as they do, Casey, you've had a couple of stories at the Nevadan about folks basically trying to fight back, whether it's through the Attorney General and in other court cases, or just in other ways that people are trying to
make the case that the wrecking ball should not be tearing down so much of what makes Nevada great.
That's exactly right, Pat.
There have been a lot of protests.
There was the big 50-51 protests that was in cities and states nationwide just a couple weeks ago.
I was up at the state capital in Carson City when
that happened and you have to understand Carson City is a really tiny town of about 50,000 people and even then it's about
45 minutes to an hour away from Reno and so again like when that is the only nearest big population center to get to 300 people to show out at this little space and keep in mind like Nevada is a pretty red state outside of the two major population areas so I mean you had people who wanted to come out and hear their voices but at the government level
You know, we've had figures, and really the biggest one has been Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, who has filed a number of lawsuits.
I think now the number is five or six against the new Trump administration, trying to just halt the wrecking ball, right?
you know, he has tried to sue to stop the enforcement of the birthright citizenship executive order.
He has sued to stop Doge.
He has sued to actually clear Elon Musk, you know, citing that he doesn't have the authority to do this because he didn't get confirmed by Congress.
So at the state level, he's really one of the officials who can has the, you know, has the teeth to do anything.
And at a time where Democrats
At least at the congressional level feel kind of helpless.
I think it's going to be states attorneys general To sort of lead the charge on us.
Well, then from a congressional standpoint Kia I mean we can we can go in either direction whether Democrats are doing enough to resist what Trump and Musk are doing or or even if they can to me though the larger issue still is on the Republican side that You know, it would only take a handful of Republicans to say hey look we we wanted you
be president but we didn't want you to you know break the law and go against the constitution and you know fire a bunch of make a bunch of people unemployed in my districts and we you know we're still seeing them instead approving unqualified cabinet appointments and saying
Not quite nothing, but nearly nothing when Trump is blaming Ukraine for being invaded.
It has not been a time of profiles and courage for the Republicans in Congress.
And so, you know, those voices who would have critiqued Trump or stood up to him have largely been drummed out of the Republican Party.
you know, you see sort of the typical folks of like the Lisa Murkowski's, Tom Tillis, Susan Collins, who are all, by the way, up for reelection in 2026, express concern and want to protect jobs in their states and, you know, complain about things here and there.
But then they, again, they vote largely to confirm his appointees.
They continue to push along the policies that he wants to pass.
So, you know, I have very little sympathy for, you know, people who
are suddenly surprised that Trump is doing what he's doing.
He's doing exactly what he said he would.
And if you backed him on the campaign trail, I don't know how you can turn around and be surprised that they're taking a wrecking ball to things.
And for some, you know, conservatives, that is the point.
And they are thrilled.
But for some of them, more the handful of, you know, moderate Republicans left who maybe who probably secretly really oppose all this, but don't publicly do anything, you know,
That's a cop out to me.
There was a story in Vanity Fair this week about how some of them are scared for their lives because, you know, there's political violence has been higher in the last decade.
And, you know, we saw what happened on January 6th.
And there is a fear that if they stand up to him that people in the MAGA movement might target their families.
That's awful.
That's horrible.
But if you're in that place and that is your political party, retire, go away.
Like, don't what are you doing?
I don't have very much sympathy for that because you could make a choice to not be part of that anymore.
If that's the status quo, again, no one should feel threatened of any party for doing their job as a public servant.
But that says a lot about where the party is at right now.
And if that's what's keeping you in line, I think you should reconsider what you're doing.
Yeah.
Let's wrap things up then and talk about a specific policy proposal that seems to have some Nevada roots.
And that's this whole notion of no tax on tips, exempting tips from income tax.
We even heard Governor Tony Evers put that in his budget address this week.
And Republicans in the legislature were saying, oh, you're just copying Donald Trump.
But it seemed that when Donald Trump mentioned it, it came out of Nevada where it was a Democratic senator who has
proposed it, right, Casey?
Yeah.
Um, so for a little bit of context, uh, the state of Nevada a few years ago, um, did away with the sub minimum wage, which is the practice of, um, you know, an employer basically setting a waitresses wage, for example, at $2 an hour to and change an hour with the thought that.
the cash chips that they make on the side will make up for the rest of their wage, right?
And so Nevada did away with that, and they just replaced it with their full on minimum wage.
And so far, that has been a very popular proposal.
And I would say so much so that, you know, throughout the campaign trail, and especially for Trump, Harris touched on it too, but
Trump really wanted to get Nevada and one of the things that he did on the campaign trail was unveiling this no tax on tips proposal in Las Vegas.
Now economically you can talk to some experts and you know is it actually constructive?
not really, but both parties are behind it right now, and there's this big push to do it.
And I think optimally, you know, it gives the idea that, you know, some relief to everyday people, right?
And so this proposal now that has been sort of underway in Congress, there are two pitches right now.
One is being led by Ted Cruz in the Senate and some other Republicans.
And it has some bipartisan buy-in, at least at the House level.
But the new bill that was unveiled by Congressman Horsford,
would basically do what Nevada does already.
And it would eliminate the sub minimum wage basically nationwide.
And so states like Wisconsin, states like Michigan, states like Texas and Oklahoma, you know, it would do away with that.
And it would also eliminate taxes on tips, but it would also
close a loophole that some people are afraid of.
Well, if we get rid of tax and tips, well, what's stopping a super rich person from tipping, you know, tipping a close friend or tipping a family member, you know, a large sum of money under the guise of it being a tip.
The
proposals right now, federally, outside of Horthford's proposal, don't contain any kind of provision to remedy that.
And so that's one big thing, I think, in this proposal.
You know, it's going to warrant some conversation.
And Keele, we're seeing this proposal at state levels, but needless to say, Congress has got to do something about the entire 2017 tax package.
And that's definitely going to be one to watch is whether a tax on tips, how they define tips.
No, don't take anything at face value.
That tax saga is going to be like the defining issue legislatively this year in Congress because Senate and House can't get on the same page.
People in the House Republicans can't get on the same page and they only have a, I think it's a three seat margin right now and it's going to change throughout the year based on open seats.
But yeah, I think, you know, will they actually prioritize no tax on tips?
I'm pretty skeptical, but we'll see what happens.
Yeah, we got we got to take care of the CEOs first, of course.
Keva Keel, senior political correspondent for Courier Newsroom out in Los Angeles, Casey Harrison at the Nevadon.
Great to talk with you, Casey.
Thanks so much.
Thank you, Pat.
All right, Kea, you have a great weekend and we will be back with more after this.
You're up north.
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.
That
was Skylar Gray and this is Jelly Roll off of a song co-written by Skylar Gray called Past Yesterday from last year when it was released.
This weekend, Skylar Gray turns 39 years old, the pride of Maisomani, Wisconsin.
In 2010, she co-wrote Eminem and Rihanna's hit single Love the Way You Lie.
She's been a guest vocalist on several hit singles, Dr. Dre's I Need a Doctor, Nicki Minaj's Bed of Lies, Macklemore's Glorious, she has written songs for Alicia Keys, Christine Aguilera, Nick Jonas, Celine Dion, and she got her start as part of a singing duo with her mom from the age of 8 to 18 around the Maisel Mani area with her mom, Candace Crichtlow.
Happy birthday to my cousin, Skyler Gray, for turning 39 this weekend.
What?
Yes.
Now, I will say again, we still have never met.
But family's family.
But family's family.
Yes.
I was aware of them way back, way, way back when, when I was doing a little genealogy research and thought, oh, that's nice.
I've got relatives who are this mother-daughter singing couple.
And then she went to LA and she'd done
good.
I was going to say she'd done good.
She really has so that's great birthday to her.
This is today's history lesson for this Friday morning February 21st born on this day 1933 Nina Simone who had a few big hits including I put a spell on you and this one that you've surely heard in other commercials and things by
now
I
think she may have one of the most distinctive haunting voices I've
ever heard in my entire life.
It was tough to pick this one or I put a spell on you.
Her biggest hit was I Love You Porgy from Porgy and Bess.
Passed away back in 2003 Nina Simone.
Born this day in 1946, the late Alan Rickman, actor and director.
You knew him as Snape and Harry Potter, Hans Gruber and Die Hard.
He was in Love Actually, Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, so many others.
Very beloved, passed away back in 2016.
Happy birthday this weekend to Drew Barrymore.
Again, one of those benchmarks where you check yourself.
Oh no!
Drew Barrymore, little Drew Barrymore of Meaty turns 50 this weekend.
So we got that going for us.
Happy birthday to Mary Chapin Carpenter, one of my favorite singers.
Here comes one of my favorite songs off one of my favorite albums.
She turned 67 today.
Man, I forgot how
much I loved her.
Oh
God.
Just love her.
Five-time Grammy winner.
That's from her huge 1992 album, Come On, Come On, which I still listen to front to back occasionally.
The newly completed Washington Monument was dedicated on this day in 1885.
Here's one of interest.
This day in 1808, Russia invaded the kingdom of Sweden.
Taking territory that would be
declared as Finland and be part of the Russian Empire for more than a hundred years until Finland became an independent country in 1917.
And don't tell me that Vladimir Putin isn't looking at Finland going, huh,
huh, huh.
Or if you want to spin it this way, do you remember that time that Finland declared war on Russia back in 1808?
Right.
They're that dictator of Finland person for birdies
the number one album this week in 1981 was high in fidelity from REO Speedwagon
It sounds like they should have been nominated for best metal performance
Well back in the 80s that that just might have happened there
And the number one single this week in 1997 was by the Spice
Girls.
Oh
dear.
So there you go.
I just see my girls just dancing away.
They wore this CD out.
Did the Spice Girls ever tour in America back in those days?
Oh, I'm sure they did.
Okay.
I wasn't sure if
you took them
to see the Spice Girls or.
Oh, no, no, no.
Not back then.
Um, this is National Sticky Bun Day.
Oh, yeah.
Sticky.
Yes, this is a language day where we are encouraged to save many of the world's endangered languages and historical heritage.
And I think of the
Ojibwe language that thankfully is being taught in some Wisconsin schools.
This is National Caregivers Day.
This is National Grain-Free Day for those folks who need a grain-free diet.
And that's pretty much it for today on the big calendar.
This weekend, I mentioned at the top of the hour, looking forward to that first Brewer Spring training game.
But it's going to be a little, you know, a little bittersweet, not hearing Yooker on the call.
And yet at the same time, it's going to be this case of, well, but, you know, Yooker would be the first to tell you the show must go on.
Yeah.
You know, and to still enjoy, you know, and enjoy the game.
But, you know, I'm just jumping ahead of it.
I could just as easily have mentioned this on Monday morning, talking about listening to the first spring training game, but it's not going to be quite the same.
But I'm looking forward to it.
It won't be, but, you know, as the only, the only, um, helpful thing from that Mark on Tenazio interview from this week was they talked about all the things that were going to be planned for, to remember, to remember him this year, um, including like, there's going to be like a ballpark celebration.
It's going to be a private celebration.
That's like invite only.
And then like things throughout the things throughout the season.
to remember him.
So
yes, it will.
And spring training reminds us that it's spring and that means that Brittany Merleau is going to have a forecast for us with temps in the forties, but also just for Greg, that wintry mix.
You
darn wintry mix, you're back again.
Back in the second hour of Up North News Radio after this on the Civic Media Radio Network.
The national news cycle never stops, but it can be hard to find news about your local community.
Civic Media is dedicated to providing quality local and state news coverage across Wisconsin.
With the Civic Media app, you can get notifications about local stories that matter to you and your community.
Find the free Civic Media app in your phone's app store and choose notifications from the menu to tell us what kind of news you want to hear about.
