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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.
Is it?
Oh yes, yes it is, here I am.
Welcome back to the second hour of Up North News Radio on a bash of Lee, Wisconsin brought to you by Courier.
Newsroom and carried by our friends here on the Civic Media Radio Network on this Friday morning.
It's February 28th, heading into the weekend with meteorologist Brittany Merleau, Greg Bakas here as well.
I'm mostly here having been offered just about a week down in Arizona, so still figuring out how all the buttons work, but we're here.
We're here and somewhere in all of these buttons, there's a lot to pass along from Rob and Tigerton.
Brittany, how are you today?
Oh, I'm pretty good.
I'm excited for the crazy wind, actually.
It's going to be wild out there.
The crazy wind?
OK.
Well, I've got quite a lead in for you here from Rob, who says, good morning from Tigerton.
It's partly cloudy, 38.
It feels like 29 with winds from the Southwest at 15 miles an hour.
He says, I still watch MASH on me TV every night.
And he notes, we talked about Gavin McLeod on the love boat and Mary Tyler Moore, also noted that he played happy.
in McHale's Navy from 1962 to 1966.
He says he loved that show.
He also notes with all the cuts being made, he's strongly against that because meteorologists do play a critical role in the weather forecasting and keep us updated on major storms and other weather patterns.
That's why I really appreciate all the work Brittany and other meteorologists do.
They are the best.
He says, welcome back Pat.
I still think Pat, Greg and Brittany are the best in morning radio and social media and concludes by saying this is the last day of meteorological winter.
Well, so you say Rob, let's check with the expert.
Can you confirm Brittany?
Yes, it is.
The last day of meteorological winter.
But that doesn't mean that winter weather isn't going to come here in spring.
We all know that that's the case.
So we flip the books as of March 1st.
That just makes more sense for us.
We do it in three month increments.
That way we can look at the data and really hone in on what's going on seasonally because equinox, it changes, right?
It's not consistent.
So anyhow, as we go through this weekend, we are going to start to feel much, much cooler.
that's going to start today and throughout this afternoon with crashing temperatures earlier than they usually do.
And it's because of a clipper system that is moving across Lake Superior into the UP and off into Michigan.
And what's that going to do for us?
Well, it's swinging a cold front through and bringing some blustery, brutal winds.
Right now they're already sustained at 15 to 25 miles per hour.
They're seeing gusts right now into Oshkosh and Ashland at 40 miles per hour.
and it's only going to get worse from here.
This is just the start of it.
Right now, they're out of the south.
They're going to be switching out of the northwest as this cold front moves through and the cold front could spark up a few spotty showers out ahead of it and a few flurries behind it.
And it's also going to turn on that lake effect snow machine off of Lake Superior where areas in towards the lake near Hurley, you could see another five inches of snowfall just today from that lake effect snow in these strong winds.
So here's the thing.
We could see some power outages.
We can also see some trees coming down too because that soil is so saturated from all of the moisture and the melt and all of that.
It's just a little bit easier to push trees down and these winds are gonna be very strong.
So we're gonna see gusts anywhere from 40 to 50 miles per hour throughout the entire state.
This is why a wind advisory goes into effect at 10 a.m.
lasts until six o'clock this evening.
And then we're going to start to see those winds start to slowly ease as we go into the overnight.
Now temperatures, they will hit the low 50s down by the state line leader this afternoon, but highs right now in the north.
We're already here.
We're only going to get colder as this front moves through.
So we are dropping overnight to temperatures into the teens to even single digits.
And then we stay colder tomorrow, all of us below freezing in the 20s.
So these temps that I'm seeing right now at the bus stop 44 in in Chippewa Falls, 39 in Wausau, 37 in Green Bay, 39 down by Greg.
This this is about it
for us
up north
least.
Okay,
a few degrees warmer if that and then we're going to get slammed right back down probably planned for temperatures this afternoon to be in the thirties
Rob jumps on and says on YouTube March Madness applies to weather more than basketball
right now
And also that maple syrup season is underway with trucks going by my house hauling sap So so many signs of the season here the calendar the just among them.
Yeah, so
All right, well, we'll batten down the hatches, Brittany.
Thank you so much.
Have a great weekend.
Thank you.
You too.
Thanks.
Yep.
Remember, you can sign up for our newsletter up north news wi.com.
We'll tell you more about what's that what's in there in a sec.
I forgot to mention with Brittany here that this is also flood safety awareness week in Wisconsin.
Flooding is one of the most frequently occurring natural disasters in the state.
It's a top cause of weather deaths across the US.
please do not drive through a flooded road.
You just don't know what's underneath there.
And the National Weather Service also notes the importance of having flood insurance for your home.
Make sure your sump pump is working and consider having a backup.
Make sure all your important documents are in a waterproof elevated container and not necessarily in the basement.
And get that snow away from the downspout area and prevent some flooding in your basement area.
All part of Flood Awareness Week.
In our newsletter that you can sign up for it up north news wi.com We talked a little earlier today already about it being national pancake day and where you can find some of the best in Wisconsin But Christina also has a story in there about sister cities
And, you know, it's a concept that started after World War II as a way of strengthening connections between allied countries.
Wisconsin's state capital, for example, has 10 different sister cities on five different continents, and you see a link to learn more about that over on our newsletter.
Sign up for it at UpNorthNewsWI.com.
We have our own first live event happening for UpNorth News, and that would be...
a state supreme court forum, three different panel discussions on some of the big issues that will be decided on April 1st between Dane County Judge Susan Crawford and Republican former state attorney general and Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimmel.
So in these discussions, we will have conversations about the economy.
and what a newly composed Supreme Court could do to help or hinder job creation and climate legislation.
Another panel on reproductive health rights and that can really change in Wisconsin depending on what happens on April 1st.
and more about the future of public education in Wisconsin.
After all, there are lawsuits that are challenging the voucher program and the anti-union legislation Act 10 itself.
So, so many panelists here, former Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, State Representative Francesca Hong, will have folks from the Wisconsin Public Education Network, from WEAC, from Planned Parenthood, and OBGYN.
State Senator Kelder Royce will be there as well.
Representative Supreme Moore Omokundi from Milwaukee, Joseph Peck,
Melissa Baldoff, Dan Schaefer.
Why wouldn't you want to be a part of this?
Head over to UpGrowthNewsWI.com slash Supreme and find out more about our Supreme Court Forum Wednesday, March 12th that evening at the Overture Center.
in Madison.
I would love to have you in attendance or listening to the live stream that we will set up as well.
So be sure you tune in for all of that.
Quick check on sports here as we approach the quarter hour mark.
The Milwaukee Bucks were in action last night.
Yana scored 28 points as the Bucks beat Denver 121-112.
They will next play at Dallas on Saturday.
The Wisconsin Madger men's basketball team getting near the end of the regular season, three games left before the conference tournament.
That includes a game Sunday against Michigan State.
Coverage begins at 1130 Sunday morning on Civic Media stations in Amory, Rapids, Racine, Kenosha and Richland Center.
The Marquette men's basketball team next place tomorrow night at Georgetown and the top ranked Badger women's hockey team.
is in action starting this evening, hosting the first round of the WCHA conference tournament.
They host Bemidji State tonight, tomorrow afternoon, and then Sunday afternoon, if needed, in that best of three series to open up the conference tournament.
We were speaking in our last hour a bit about, well, let's just say the chaos brought by Trump administration cuts.
And again, the ridiculousness out there of believing, like as one person says on Facebook, that these are all actors playing a part.
This move to minimize the real harm that is being done by these job cuts.
And the point that I wanna make is because we've talked a lot about the cuts.
This is a real impact on real people and it's going to impact all of our lives.
But it comes back to this notion, and we talk about this with the debt ceiling all the time, that when Republicans talk about, well, we shouldn't vote to authorize an increase in the debt ceiling.
Well, you basically have to because you've already authorized this spending.
And this is just about paying the bills.
And that's what really sticks with me about all of these illegal firings.
And they are illegal firings.
And I believe many of them will at some point be reinstated.
because this is not part of a budget process.
The folks that are hired, the folks that are doing all of these key jobs from air traffic controllers on down, were hired as part of a budget that was approved by Congress and signed by the president.
And so for a president to think that they can come in as the executive branch and start making cuts throughout the entire government, just reeks of an overreach in power.
And yes, Congress is going along with the bit right now.
They're going to wish they hadn't at some point if the tables were ever to be turned.
These are commitments that were made, promises that were made to these workers saying you come serve your country and do these essential jobs and you will have
you will have this job security.
Maybe not until the next budget, maybe the next budget will be cutting jobs.
But to do this mid-cycle is the kind of authoritarian stretch that another court yesterday said was a bridge too far for the executive branch.
We'll see if it sticks as it continues to make its way through the court.
But again, to
To think that you can get away with denigrating the people who are losing their jobs, just reminds me that there are different people who should lose their jobs instead.
Some won't lose their jobs until November of next year.
And with that, that might include, say, some of their staffers.
If you look on the Eau Claire media news sites, WEAU, for example, ran a story about how nearly 100 people showed up to talk to Brian Westrate.
the former chair of the Eau Claire Republican Party who's now the Eau Claire staffer for Congressman Derrick Van Orden.
He agreed to a meeting and then didn't show up in the meeting because there were too many people there.
They found him down at Derrick Van Orden's office and then Van Orden's office had the audacity to put out a statement saying that these folks were unprofessional and trying to ambush the congressional staffer.
It is hardly an ambush when a bunch of primarily older folks show up.
Not exactly a crowd that's looking to, you know, string anybody up, but they hand over letters and notes saying just how much these cuts are hurting and how some of them are illegal and should not stand.
We're going to talk about all this and more with our week and review panel coming up right after this break on Up North News Radio live from Lake Wessona on the Civic Media Radio Network.
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It was on this week 1984 that Thriller won like all the Grammys, including Album of the Year.
So we're playing some cuts off there on this Friday morning here on Up North News Radio across the Civic Media Radio Network, just about 722 right now.
And it's going to be fun.
It's going to be a bit of a stretch, but it's Oscar weekend.
So we're going to have a little fun with political theater.
And if they gave out Oscars for some of these categories, what would you do with them?
So I'm going to ask my Week in Review panel to talk all about that.
That, of course, includes former U.S.
Attorney Jim Santel, who also hosts Amicus Saturday mornings at nine across the Civic Media Radio Network.
And then we've got two folks from Chicago, Mark Jacob, who's worked for the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times.
And pinch hitting for Jennifer Schulze, who's off traveling this week is WCPT radio broadcaster, Jonas Pizito, who joins us from the Windy City as well.
Jim's connection is a little low.
Hey, wire right now, but we'll see if we can get him back on.
In the meantime, Mark, Joan, good morning.
How are you?
Good morning.
Joan, it's so nice to be with you.
Having been on your show multiple times, it's nice to thank you so much for getting up early and joining us over here
today.
You're very, very welcome.
And you know, in addition to the Oscars and the Grammys, I just want to say today is my anniversary.
So there's three reasons to celebrate.
Wow.
Okay, we got all kinds of reasons here.
Where do we want to start with all this?
Because there's so much going on and and you know, there's
There's people who have been good supporters who have been good actors who have been bad actors at all of this Let me let me start with this one first mark because it's it's the
It's the most obvious one.
Best comedy.
The award for best comedy this week has to go to Susan Collins for claiming that she was appalled, appalled, that in the United Nations votes about the war in Ukraine that the Trump administration sided with Russia.
It's good comedy out of Susan Collins, but Mark, nobody's laughing anymore at this stuff.
day,
Wow, I can't believe this, you know, it's, it's, it's, I mean, I can't, I can't believe she won her last election and I don't know what she's going to do next time, but
But it's like you know In some ways someone like Tommy Tuberville who you know exactly where he's coming from and he's you know gonna say a bunch of crazy crap and all that In some ways that to me that's preferable than somebody who pretends to be a moderate But always ends up on the side of the right wing like Susan Collins and always acts like she's standing out for decency But never ends up on that you know doing it really
Well, that really when it comes down to acting, Joan, that that's really what we're talking about here is there is just so much acting, which I know feeds the cynicism that people have about politics.
But that doesn't mean we should accept.
the cynicism, we shouldn't accept the bad acting, we should call these kinds of things out, definitely the kind of thing that you do on your afternoon show in Chicago is to
say,
well, people trying to be, they say they want to be moderate, their actions don't show that at all.
We call out the obvious bad behavior, but what really gets me is, you know, and I'm sure you've had this experience too, Pat, you privately talk to a Republican
or you interview somebody who knows Republicans and they trust to speak privately, and they don't even believe what they're voting for and what they're doing.
Privately, they'll say, well, you know, Trump is a danger.
Publicly, they're like, well, I'm behind Trump 100%.
That's the worst kind of acting.
That's the kind of acting that just drives me crazy because it's, I feel,
that Donald Trump himself is less dangerous than the people in elected office who are enabling him.
Because those are the people who have the potential to slow him down if not rein him in, and they're, and they're acquiescing.
You know, I'm reading a book about how democracies fall and, you know, Thailand and what happened in Germany and just, you know, countries all across, all across the world, all across recent history of the last
120 years, and it is the enablers who really bring down democracy, not the tyrants themselves.
So that's the acting that I want to call out.
And then enabling can come not just from, you know, sick offense and minions and yes men.
But Jim Santel, it also does come from some
parts of the judiciary as well.
You know, some folks on the Supreme Court come to mind, for example, who are acting as justices but appear to be politicians and judicial robes.
But then there are still the occasional moments that tell us
Maybe things aren't all lost.
You've got yet another federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Thursday to retract the directives that prompted the firing of thousands of federal workers, saying that they were illegal and suggesting the layoffs be stopped.
That's fine for one judge to say, Jim, but I have a feeling this, like so many other Trumpian court things, is going to be caught in a long, hard slog before anything is resolved.
Certainly will be and to follow up on your theme I would offer pet to your good thoughts that some of the best supporting actors out there right now those who are Keeping the guardrails up to some extent are those federal judges out there?
This is William Alsap Northern District of, California We just last night said you know what you do not have the legislative You don't have the regulatory authority to do what you're doing and for that reason stop it now again those statements are important
They should be consumed by every American.
To your point, we also have an appellate process.
And all these decisions, including those other judges, are also saying, oh, by the way, you can't not do what I tell you to do.
They're making some findings about contempt.
All these things will be subject to appeals, to courts of appeals.
Some of this, it's already percolating up to some degree to the Supreme Court.
Ultimately, the big, non-supporting major actor, again, comes from last July.
in the United States Supreme Court at the pin of John Roberts told Donald Trump that he's got this massive authority to do what he can do.
That's a major player in any movie, including the horrific movie that's going on in America right now.
So quite some political theater here to which I would offer as we head into break here that there does need to be an award for Worst Supporting Actor and that has to be
JD Vance who somehow believes in his mind He's still the vice president of the United States when we actually have co-presidencies going on here.
What what happened to JD Vance?
I guess he's just sent overseas to occasionally make
while the inappropriate speeches.
But we'll continue this conversation with our panel, Jonas Pesido from WCPT Radio in Chicago.
Mark Jacob, who has the stop, the press's newsletter, Jim Santel, former U.S.
Attorney, who hosts Amicus here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
That discussion continues right after this break.
I'm Pat Crightlow.
You're up north.
I got a pair of birds coming up to start the week here on Up North News Radio.
Unrelated, I believe, but by happy coincidence, we have children's author Laura Bird joining us Monday morning at 7.30 with her latest list of book recommendations to keep your mind off current events for a little while.
And then Tuesday morning at 7.30, Luann Bird from Bird on a Wire.
She's now a podcaster.
She's been a candidate, an activist in the Milwaukee area.
and all the time, basically killing us with kindness, because we can still have kindness even as we serve one another and resist current trends and politics.
Then on Wednesday, we will have Congressman Mark Polkan joining us, a couple of state legislators on Thursday.
And then next Friday, the return of an All-Star Weekend Review Panel, like the one we got right here, right now, with Jonas Pizito and Mark Jacob and Jim Santel.
Jon, let me start.
with you for being our special guest here and when I'm on your show uh some afternoon like I think I am next week um you often ask about what's happening up in Wisconsin what's what's new up in Wisconsin I have one Illinois question I want to ask you and I actually haven't asked Mark Jacob this for all those appearances on here we see your your billionaire governor JB Pritzker all the time you know rather boisterous standing up to Trump everything like that it does not
appear like he has some kind of national ambitions.
He strikes me as somebody who just likes the job that he's in, likes being able to poke at Donald Trump and as a fellow wealthy person can kind of go toe-to-toe with, you know, working to deflate his ego.
Is that kind of the right read on the governor there or is there more to JB Pritzker?
Well, first of all, I say hats off to JB Pritzker, who at this moment in time seems to be filling a void of elected Democrats who are really willing to speak truth to power and
speak it
passionately, loud and long.
And I don't care how much Hakeem Jeffries tells
Rachel Maddow, oh, we don't need to have our spine stiffened, you know?
Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are not leading this charge and people like JB Pritzker are.
And, you know, he was accused when he made that state of the state, a state of the budget speech of positioning himself for higher office.
And let's face it, Pat, you get somebody in a congressional seat or a Senate seat or a governor's chair.
they think about higher office they think about what would you know what would it take for me to run for president i'd be a good president um there's a really you have to have a really strong sense of self to run for those jobs in the first place so if the stars aligned and it looked like he would make the strongest democratic candidate for president i think he absolutely would do it is he
positioning himself and thinking about every word he says right now to get to that place?
Not so much.
I think he's really upset that the Democratic leadership in Washington isn't coming out in a full-throated cry against Trump.
I mean, he was one of the two people.
who organized that democratic governor call with Chuck Schumer.
And that call was all about, dude, you know, you got to do more.
You got to be out there.
You got to be yelling and screaming and waving your hands around.
And so he's, would he accept higher office?
I think he absolutely would.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
Jonah.
I don't think that's what he's
he's, I don't think everything he's saying and doing right now is solely for that reason.
Mark, does it come back to what we talked about last Friday with Jennifer Schulze as well about you, Joan talks about filling that void.
And, you know, you never know who's going to be the next great messenger of any cause or party or whatever.
But, you know, you won't find out if you don't actually step up to the microphone now and then, Mark.
He doesn't really
he doesn't need to kowtow to special interest groups or to um to rich donors uh and you know the weird thing about that pad is that you got people like bezos who uh or super rich but they're still afraid of losing it all so they have to kowtow to you know to the right wing but uh but pretzker's got the family money he's he's very grounded um you know this idea that he's some
Child of privilege.
You know, he lost both his parents by the time he was 19 I mean, it's not he he had a tough childhood and he even you know being rich doesn't mean your privilege necessarily so he he's been through things and he and I really I think he's overperformed, you know when I was a editor at the Chicago Tribune We wrote tough stories about Pritzker when he was running for press for governor and
You know, I think he's done better than anyone expected.
And boy, do we need people who are going to speak boldly now.
We don't need people who are going to just say, well, we need to get along better or we need to lay back and let the Republicans mess up on their own.
I don't think so.
I think we need to confront outrageous things all the time.
And we need to fight, fight, fight.
That's what we need to
do.
the mindset of wealthy Republicans that they can bend the rules, break the rules, the rules don't apply to them.
I brought up a point, Jim, a little bit earlier, that I don't necessarily expect you to be an expert on this, but give it your best crack, is that much like we talk about the debt ceiling and how this is a phony debate, Congress already approved the spending, so the debt ceiling is just pay the bills you've already
you know, approved in your budget.
The same thing to me goes with these cuts.
I mean, look, if you want to cut massive amounts of jobs, do it in the next budget.
But we're in a budget right now where all these folks were hired by the federal government under a budget that's there.
If you want to go find spending cuts and set that all up for your next budget, that's fine.
But you know, maybe that's not the sole reason why these mass firings are illegal.
But it certainly does strike me as odd that that
They think they can just do this willy-nilly in the middle of a budget cycle.
Under our Constitution, we know well how this works.
You've got the House of Representatives that begins to establish the budget process.
It comes forward and articulates a broad ambit, a broad structure for our budget, goes over to the Senate.
Yes, indeed, a president also contributes to that process.
And in the end, through the appropriations process, all of this is not put in stone, but it codifies not only the way that government works, but also the policies and priorities of the government.
That's the way that a congress and a president can indeed mold and shape the nation.
Once that is done, and once you have hired the people to execute on those plans that have now been properly constitutionally put in place, you can do some massaging around the edges.
But this sort of thing, again, as you indicated, as judges are finding, not only is it illegal because you're doing things that the Congress, as expressed, you said you can't do, contrary to what the Congress has said, but it also puts on its head the entire budget process.
Again, as you go forward and work on future budgets, you can make these changes.
I know this all too well when I'm as US Attorney, other supervisory positions.
When those times came when we did not have a budget and I had to look at employees and send them home, you recognize the impact that these things have and the notion of solidity and certainty and regularity when it comes to processing the work of the office.
When that doesn't happen, very bad things happen.
And that, of course, is the other consequence we're seeing across the board, including Noah, as you indicated earlier.
catastrophic for America.
We've got these huge layoffs coming quite literally Americans in danger right now as those go forward.
Right.
And to get back to an earlier point that we were talking about with billionaires and such.
Now, I was going to mention this and then I forgot now, Austin brings it up on Facebook.
George Soros is spending millions in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race right now.
Do you care or do you only care when Musk does it?
And the point I wanted to make was that there's a difference between checkbook and mouth.
We all have freedom of speech.
JB Pritzker is doing, you know, a great job with his mouth rather than necessarily trying to, you know, buy the president
as Elon Musk did.
So there is very much a difference when a essentially a co-president as Elon Musk is is trying to buy his way into the Supreme Court race here in Wisconsin.
But Joan
a lot of what's being done to these employees and to people.
It's all done under the usual guise of what I refer to as Ronald Reagan's Welfare Queen.
You've got members of Congress saying, well, we're doing this because all these able-bodied people are milking the taxpayer, get off the couch, stop eating Cheetos, you know, stop buying medical marijuana.
This is all coming from a congressman in Texas whose own constituents
You know, 50% of the people on Medicaid down there have somebody with a disability at home that they're caring for.
This whole notion of blaming the employees and
blaming
people for their needs is just, it's so tired and yet it clearly still works with just enough people.
Well, that's where I want Democratic leadership to step up.
I mean, Pat, you and I, we have our radio platforms and we do what we can, but Medicaid
62% of people in nursing homes are getting some kind of Medicaid.
Those aren't people who are eating bonbons.
And those aren't people who can go to work to offset their payments.
The disabled, the chronically ill, very young children.
Republicans like to say things that they think make sense.
Oh, we're going to get rid of the waste and the lollygaggers.
If you scratch below the surface, who is it that actually gets Medicaid?
And then this idea that, well, you can only get Medicaid if you work so many hours.
Really?
Your 94-year-old grandma in a nursing home?
What kind of job is she going to get?
And this is where Democrats have a perfect opportunity to call this kind of thing out and say, it's nonsense.
And I wish I wish there was a lot more of that going on.
I do as well.
And Mark, it's something that we've talked about in terms of Courier Newsroom is conveying a certain message to folks that government actually does a lot of good things when good people are operating it, charged with handling those responsibilities seriously, charged with being.
prudent with the taxpayer money.
Is there any chance, how pie in the sky am I here?
Is there any chance that this all ends, Mark, at some point with more Americans having an appreciation for the services that our tax dollars have paid for?
And maybe so.
You know, I mean, one of the things that, you know, Project 2025 called for getting rid of the, you know, the national weather service, you know, and privatizing stuff like that.
And they've talked about laying off hundreds of NOAA people, which deals with climate and deals with research.
And I mean, if you privatize the National Weather Service, you're quickly going to realize that you've got to pay to get warned if there's a hurricane.
I mean, it's crazy.
There are reasons why we have government agencies.
CDC because we want we don't want diseases spreading across the country, you know I mean this idea that well those those little lollygaggers is one of you guys put it is I mean the idea that everyone is just you know sleeping at their desk or at home and not working is it's outrageous and it's just and it's I mean
all the time you see government workers doing important things.
I mean, that's why we have government, so they will fix roads, so they will have cops, so they will have a military so that we can... I mean, they're laying off people in the Defense Department.
This is madness.
And why are they doing it, Pat?
They're doing it so they can give rich people more money.
That's what they're doing.
And that's what we came back to in the first hour of the show.
This all of this, all of the chaos, the unintended consequences, the intended consequences, the catering to the culture war crowd.
That's not the top issue for any of them.
It is money.
It is the money class wanting more money.
and more power.
Everything else just feeds into it.
Jim, you've got a busy, we barely as always scratch the surface of the legal things that are in the news.
What kinds of things are you talking about tomorrow on amicus, a law review across the civic media radio network?
You know, one of the things we're going to talk about, I see that Don from while I told us asking about what you do, what these federal employees do, we're going to reemphasize what you just said, Pat.
And that is the importance of federal workers and the significance that they add to our lives.
And also the notion that, yes, indeed, there's a thing called the Merit Systems Protection Board that is beginning to restore some of these people just a couple of days ago.
Six of them were restored by the MSPB saying, nope, you're entitled to your job.
Go back to work.
I'm going to talk about the process, among other things, not only to push back on these large scale
cuts, but also in the individual way to say, you know what, you have rights under the Constitution, under the laws of this nation, to the benefit, once again, of 334 million people.
Very nice.
And Joan, when can people catch you on WCPT?
How do they do
it?
Monday through Friday from 2 p.m.
to 5 p.m.
WCPTA20.com.
Go to your computer, hit the listen live button, and I will be there in all my glory.
We'll look forward to that very much.
Thank you, Joan.
Thank you, Jim.
Thank you, Mark.
Have a wonderful weekend.
When we come back, Dan Schumacher will talk sports and wrap things up for Friday on Up North News Radio.
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.
Alright, let's wrap up the work week here.
I've got my my new Brewer's cap on that I got at spring training.
Uh special.
It's got the what color is this?
It's just some kind of a desert sand.
It looks
like a tope.
Okay, we'll go with tope.
Let's get the little spring training logo on it.
So, that was that was my week in sports which is pretty cool.
Dan Schumacher is here as well.
Dan, you ever been to spring training for the Cubs or anybody else?
I am not.
It's one thing I have done.
preseason football camps, pro camps, but not baseball.
I
suppose, yeah.
You know what I'm
thinking, guys?
Next year, the three of us head over to Arizona, check out some Cubs games, check out some Brewers games, have a time.
There we
go.
Isn't it great?
We always have these great ideas
for where we can travel.
Never do
them.
There never seems to be.
the logistics or the funding.
But
it's, it's nice to think about.
And you know, the thing is, Dan, I have wanted to do spring training for, for decades.
It's, you know, there's just something that sounds almost magical and ritualistic about it.
Now look, what, once you get there, if you've been to small stadium baseball games, like
Paul Saints, for example, the facility down there, American Family Fields, it isn't that much different than.
other small stadium baseball games you've been to.
It's just the fact that it is spring training is what makes it feel special while you're down there.
Yeah, it's a it's a baseball game.
No, it's a spring training baseball game.
It's like there's hope even for Cubs fans.
There is hope that spring is coming.
No doubt.
No doubt.
No, that would be good.
You know, it's
Probably one of those things I got to put on a bucket list and make sure I check it off before the inevitable.
Before you kick that bucket.
Before the bucket gets kicked,
yes.
Exactly.
What do you have that's comparable to?
Look, you were actually as a player at an NFL training camp or a combine, right?
I
was at two.
At two of them.
The
Browns and the Steelers.
Browns and the Steelers.
Okay.
How long ago was that?
Well,
more than a year or two.
So that's that would be the spring of 89.
Okay.
All right.
I mean, is that still I mean, obviously, you know, your your career path went in all kinds of directions here.
But does that still count as something special when you think of many sports memories?
You know, it does.
But it was a very short period.
I mean, I think I was, shoot, I was maybe at the Browns for three days.
I'm in the same for about the Steelers so it was a quick cup of coffee and at least I got invited I got to see what still is in my head is the level of competition I was going against.
The speed, the hand strength, I was a plain wide receiver so the hardest thing to do if you're really good defensive back you can push guys off the line with your hands and your hands are due to strength as a DB and
I did the main thing, the speed and the strength and the agility.
It, uh, I just didn't, I wasn't up the part of that.
Yes, Greg.
I have a question.
Uh, this is, this is a football question.
Are there, uh, many separate combines or is it one NFL combined and all the teams are there?
What they do now,
they did, everyone joined 35 years ago.
They had one combine.
Now what they do is they do, they try to avoid bringing the.
Division 2 and Division 3 players to the combine.
It's a great more room for D1.
But then what they turn around is they play these little bowl games, these senior bowl games.
And that's when the Division 2 and Division 3 guys get to show what they got.
That's where they do some games down in Florida, or one in Arizona.
And you get invited to, I mean, Pat, the UW O'Claire quarterback.
played in a bowl game as well as a senior.
So that's how we get to show off his talents.
And that's how I got signed to go to Europe instead.
OK.
You know, when you talked about the, you know, the hands and the strength and the speed and everything, they reminded me of a sports segment that I heard earlier in the week, really all about what's being called the tush push.
That the the Philadelphia Eagles have been using so well and whether it is something that is bending the rules or if they have just Perfected the technique of the quarterback sneak and getting somebody over the line So here's as deep a sports question as we get today Dan.
Where are you on the tush push?
And one time it was illegal to do that.
Well, yeah, you put the 600
pounds of
men behind the quarterback and yeah You could not you could not have you know when that started to happen Usually they called it down right where the contact was happening where you could see another offensive line and pulling somebody into the into the end zone and stuff like that But I don't know exactly when the rules changed and now that a couple of these proteins are using it to their advantage Especially when you've got a smaller quarterback behind the center, you know
Like the Eagles have, they have a smaller little guy.
Well, there you go.
I don't know.
I'm trying to be different on it.
It's just another part of the strategy to the game.
Yeah.
And it was situational stuff.
Yep, yep.
Uh, no, I just, I kind of wondered about those.
We get to talking about that.
Let's get to a basketball for a second.
Yana scored 28 last night.
Bucks beat the Denver Nuggets, 121-112.
They play at Dallas tomorrow.
Three games left for college men's basketball.
The Badger men's basketball team will be playing on Sunday.
Uh, that will be against Michigan State, uh, coverage starts at 1130.
across the Civic Media radio network.
And then the Marquette men's basketball team is at Georgetown Saturday night.
The Badger women's hockey team kicks off their conference tournament hosting Bemidji State tonight.
Tomorrow afternoon and Sunday afternoon and if needed, that is all to say Dan, that in conclusion, if you are any kind of a sports fan, especially this time of year, the really fun season is coming up.
March Madness for basketball and hockey.
Badgers look good.
They look like a top team.
I wouldn't give as far as they get one of the top seeds.
They're playing well.
They're playing really well.
Heck, my Northland baseball team leaves for Florida next week for their spring travels and start games.
Another
sign of spring.
I love this.
It's like,
it's like, like I said, the guy that came and, uh, hold my lawn tractor away for it needed some annual service and whatnot.
And as he's loading down the trailer, I come outside and I just, I just sell them.
I'm going to call you Robin because you are my first sign of spring.
The
lawn
tractor is getting its tune up.
I am ready for
all
of those.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
And he just drove, drove away quietly in his trailer.
Thank you, Dan.
Have a good weekend.
Have a great weekend guys.
Greg Bach is back for Matt and Aaron air two little hours from now here across the civic media radio network.
You have a great weekend and all of you as well.
Enjoy.
I'm Pac right low.
Thanks so much for being here for up north news radio.
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