Wisconsin from Civic Media.
This is Up North News Radio.
Now, live from our late Minnesota studio, here's the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Breidler.
Good morning.
Welcome back to Up North News Radio on a bash at Lee, Wisconsin, brought to you by Courier Newsroom and carried by our friends here on the Civic Media Radio Network at 7 0 6 on this Thursday morning, March 6.
Nice to have you along coming up.
And just a bit, waiting for us in the digital waiting room right now, as they say, is Sean O'Malley from Hudson, Wisconsin, somebody that I have known for four decades now.
And we kind of lost touch with each other for a little while.
Next thing I know, he is one of Wall Street's foremost experts on fraud and financial crimes and...
kind of follows connects the dots shall we say between Wall Street and Washington and so we're going to talk a bit about some of the first moves by the new administration and the things that you know you should know as a Wisconsin consumer as a bank customer as a potential retiree as an investor these are things that maybe don't strike you as connecting to you right away when you hear that you know Russian oligarchs could
get citizenship by buying a so-called gold card, these things do matter.
And so we'll talk to Sean about that in just a couple of moments here.
In our second half hour, we will talk to a brand new state assembly representative, Russell Goodwin, and state senator Latanya Johnson, who's on the Joint Finance Committee, which is charged with writing the state budget.
We'll get an update on how that process is coming along.
First, however, as we take up on 708 here, meteorologist Brittany Merleau joins us to talk more about the aftermath of the snow that fell all across Wisconsin, the cold weather that followed, and the not so cold weather that's down the road there, as Greg reacts silently to all of these things in real time.
You can add a little audio to that one.
The cold weather that followed the snow.
There we go, something like that.
Brittany, good morning.
Good morning.
It's a world of difference out there today.
Thankfully.
Yes,
it is.
Yes.
Oh my gosh.
Was that wild?
We saw whiteout conditions.
Those winds were whipping.
54 mile per hour gusts were clocked right here in Wausau.
We saw over a foot of snow into portions of Iron County, St.
Croix, Polk County.
I mean, Northwest Wisconsin was definitely hit hard.
Actually, I'm supposed to tell you on
behalf of Tony on YouTube, tell the Snow Queen she overdid it in Ashland.
I'm sorry.
An
abundance of riches, that's all.
Oh, but Ashlyn, I think they can enjoy that snowfall.
Have a nice bonfire by the lake.
There you go.
Isn't that fantastic up there?
Oh, we're looking at a few clouds this morning by Lake Michigan, speaking of lakes, it's also a little breezy by Lake Michigan still to especially down south gusts are still whipping up to 30 miles per hour.
But there is relief into northern parts of the state.
We're not feeling that wind much at all.
But now here's the thing with the temperatures.
The snow is on the ground.
That actually keeps us colder.
So up north, we're looking at upper 20s today.
And down south, you're going to hit highs in the upper 30s today.
Those winds easing.
and more and more throughout the afternoon and bright and beautiful all day sunshine.
We're going to see a few clouds start to build in later later tomorrow because we do have a system scraping that could bring some light snow south up north.
We're going to be just fine.
Nice and dry.
In fact, that continues all weekend long.
Highs on Saturday will be in the upper 30s to low 40s and by Sunday we're going to be some mid 40s all across the state.
I like the way that this is coming together here.
Good
morning
from Tigerton, says Rob.
It's sunny, 19 degrees, a wind chill of nine, three inches of snow.
Roads in Western Chano County are snow and ice covered, but the road crews are out overnight.
He was busy plowing.
His snow blower broke down, had to take it to Adam's small engine in Clintonville.
So some sidewalks I had to shovel by hand in places.
It was real wet, heavy snow.
I am
also
under the weather today, so I've been resting between jobs yesterday and when I work overnight.
Can I give Rob some of his own advice?
Yes, go for it.
Take it easy, man.
And also drink your water.
That's right.
He does know the sunshine
is going to melt the ice off the roads.
And Alicia notes, yeah, that breeze from Appleton up to Marinette was a touch interesting.
I
like that.
It was
interesting.
Definitely
a good way to put that.
Oh, that wing does a touch interesting.
Just
a touch
too, she
says.
That's funny.
And there goes little Christie.
I knew she should have had some more sandwiches for lunch.
Anyway, Brittany, thank you so much.
Have a wonderful day.
You too.
All right.
Let's do a 711 right now.
Just a really quick note about sports because the Bucks were winners 137 to 107 over Dallas.
Giannis scored 32 points taking him above the 20,000 mark for his career.
The Badger Men's basketball team beat up on the Gophers last night, 74.67.
They next play Saturday hosting Penn State.
You can hear that game on several civic media stations.
And the Marquette men lost at UConn last night, 72.266.
All right, I'm going to bring in Sean O'Malley now from Hudson.
Sean and I go back to high school and
I hadn't heard from each other for a little while and then he reconnects with me and I find out that this guy is, how did you go from just another dork at Hudson High School to becoming one of Wall Street's foremost experts on international compliance and fraud and all kinds of things like that?
I did not know that that interested you back then.
when they are making their final career choices.
So it started, you know, I did my undergraduate in economics at the University of Minnesota.
So that sort of got me started a little bit.
And my career, my entire career for a room's information has been in the financial services space.
So I'm going to be speaking, you know, largely from that realm based on my experience.
But then the bug got me, Pat.
I went to business school, got my MBA in finance, and then, you know, 18 months later, I'm working in New York, and it kind of wound up being one thing after another, doing work in consulting, doing a lot of things in risk management, getting into the compliance world, excuse me, and bringing
a lot of my analytical experience into that realm and doing things that really haven't been done in the industry before.
So yeah, that's you go from being the geek who just kind of likes math and then you find a way to apply it out there.
To last I last I saw here was a vice president and deputy chief inspector for enforcement at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
One
You know who else's mail you should get because it comes up in Google all the time There's apparently a mixed martial artist fighter named Sean O'Malley
name.
That's C. Now, sometimes having an oddball name like quite low, it does work in your favor.
I've got
No, nothing like no, no, no, no.
So in the in the work that you have been doing then in financial services, compliance, fraud, things
like
that.
You're looking at all of these things.
Now, you're are you like fully retired?
You're still doing a little consulting?
I like that.
That means you can't afford him, folks.
He's set a good price.
Well, so let's start with tariffs, especially when it comes to Canada.
One of
our friendliest trading partners.
And here, Donald Trump is slapping tariffs on Canada.
And what is it that people should appreciate fully about this if it continues to, even if it doesn't
take full effect but just continues to similar, you know, the ambiguity of it, the lack of certainty plays a role in markets that affect all of us.
The whipsaws in the stock markets are definitely in kidding that Wall Street does not like these tariffs.
So you saw Monday and Tuesday down significantly on all major indices.
Yesterday we had a bit of a pickup, but then I already checked the futures market this morning and everything that we gained yesterday we're going to give up today if you believe the futures market is correct.
But what's happening with these tariffs is that it's going to have an impact in a lot of ways that we cannot easily see or expect or anticipate.
We know that they have taken a delay, a one-month delay on the tariffs that are going to directly impact the auto industry.
But even there, you're going to have ancillary impacts from other tariffs that are going to be impacting some of the goods that are used, some of the wrong materials that are used to produce cars.
Some of the big areas that are going to impact the United States and U.S.
consumers coming from Canada is, believe it or not, yes, oil.
We've got between four to five million barrels per day coming from Canada into the US.
And Canada will be putting tariffs, reciprocal tariffs.
So this is going to become a tariff war.
And that's what you need to understand is that tariffs are sort of like economic war.
And I'll give credit to Warren Buffett there for that quote from earlier this week.
So what happens with tariffs is that in a lot of times these are put in place to protect certain industries historically.
One of the best examples that's specific to Wisconsin is the tariffs that were put in place for protecting Harley Davidson back in 1982.
Harley Davidson was having a tough time.
The recession of 81-82 had brought the
prices of Japanese motorcycles down significantly.
And so Harley Davidson went to the US government and said, hey, can you please help us out by increasing the tariffs on Japanese motorcycles, which the US government did for a period of several years.
However, after Harley Davidson retooled their production facilities, they actually asked the US government to remove those tariffs one year early because they said we're ready to compete.
And they've been enormously successful ever since.
However,
There is another example with Harley Davidson from the last Trump administration where the tariffs on steel actually made it tougher for Harley Davidson to compete because they had to pay increased prices for steel, which wound up being, you know, a bad thing for Harley Davidson.
Now, one of the things that's going to impact a lot of the, you know, people not just in terms of like gas prices at the pump, those are going to go up, but farmers in Wisconsin.
due to these tariffs.
Let's let's come
back to let's come back to that because I want to get to the fertilizer end of it because it's kind of surprising for folks that think oh wait all of our fertilizer we generate ourselves if you know what I mean.
No it doesn't it doesn't work exactly like that.
Sean O'Malley is our guest and we will talk more about the tariffs and other matters in financial markets and the economy that affect us.
When we come back from this quick two minute break here on Up and With News Radio live from Lake Wissota on the Civic Media Radio Network.
All right, this one from Hall of Notes doesn't have any basis in today's history lesson.
Other than that, it was the number one or the number two song this week in 1982 when my guest Sean O'Malley and I were palling around Hudson.
We had a mutual friend.
might have been my high school girlfriend, but we don't want to incriminate her at this point.
And Sean has since gone on to have a wonderful career in finance and compliance and is talking with us today.
Sean, when we left off and as we got talking about old days and talked right through the commercial break there, we were talking about tariffs and their impact and
Let's start with this segment with fertilizer, because again, we're used to, you know, people spread manure, but there's much more to fertilizer than that.
And where, again, antagonizing a friendly trading partner like Canada is not really helpful to Wisconsin farmers.
Yeah.
Canadians, in addition to being the number one buyers of American products, they are also suppliers to us of a number of products.
And since this
Economic War, again, crediting Warren Buffett has been declared.
Canada was prepared, they expected it, and they have come back with reprisals.
So they're putting tariffs on some of their products.
One of the ones that's going to be most impactful to Wisconsin farmers is the tariff on potash.
Now, a lot of people don't know what potash is, but it is one of the major ingredients in agricultural fertilizer.
So what that means,
is that when farmers go to buy their fertilizer, it will be more expensive.
With the fertilizer prices going up, that means producing food.
Those prices are going to go up.
Those prices will be passed on.
So the farmers are going to be hit economically by the tariffs on potash that Canada is putting on their exports of potash to make a commercial fertilizer.
And it will also impact people, you, me, everybody listening in terms of higher food prices as well.
Which is odd because Donald Trump ran basically saying inflation was out of control, prices were too high.
He kept claiming tariffs are not going to get passed on to the consumer.
Of course, everybody knows that that's wrong.
Is there anything tariff related that would ever be useful about lowering?
the cost of food for Americans, or is it just a natural cause and effect that tariffs increase our prices?
They're only going to serve to increase prices.
So even if, even if, for example, we had significant reserves of potash here in the United States, which we do not end up putting into perspective, 80 to 85% of the reserves of potash are Canadians.
So we just don't have it.
Why
it Exactly you can't you can't create an industry and you certainly can't you can't and you can't recreate one You know out of whole cloth and just say well, we're gonna start making TVs here even though we haven't made TVs in this country for a very long time Let me get to international compliance and international finance for example because the Trump administration has also been relaxing the rules that would make it easier to find tax dodgers and money launderers
There's this gold card talk about letting people essentially buy citizenship.
Other countries have tried it and now they're pulling back on it from those things and even a cryptocurrency reserve, which that's a whole different discussion right there.
But I would sense this raises a lot of red flags for you in terms of, you know, if you were still in a role where you were watching out for international compliance for things like fraud, money laundering and things like
Yes, absolutely.
So there are a couple of, there's a little unpack there in terms of what you mentioned.
Let's start with the $5 million American Visa program that has been proposed by this administration.
One of the issues there is that that means that it will be possible for certain people to essentially buy their way into the country.
I don't know
there have been not a lot of specifics put forth as to whether or not the same scrutiny will be applied to those visa holders applying for that gold card for American visa or not.
I would hope that all of those are put in place, but one of the questions first asked in the Oval Office was, does this mean that Russian oligarchs will be able to
And the response, as I recall, was, well, perhaps so.
And I know some Russian oligarchs, which is actually very true.
I looked up the numbers.
And the Trump Organization has sold at least $98.5 million of real estate to Russians.
So I'm sure he does know some Russian oligarchs.
Yeah, very, very fine people, you know, something something along along those lines.
So yeah, you've got you've got the lack of transparency, shall we say on that, but just the the overall appearance that from getting rid of the Consumer Financial Protection Board to firing a bunch of people at the IRS.
I mean, basically,
I get the impression you and I still aren't going to be able to cheat on our taxes, but other people are going to find life a little bit easier now than it was, you know, last year.
Oh, it was probably at the oligarchs or the enforcement or crypto.
Well,
The issue with crypto is that it's a great way to engage in money laundering because in many cases, uh, it's anonymous.
Right.
Which is one of the key ways of being able to commit money laundering.
The other thing you have to worry about with the Russian oligarchs is that, um, Vladimir Putin.
is widely recognized in anti-money laundering circles to have control over approximately $2 trillion.
Yes, I said trillion.
$2 trillion in assets.
The easier you make it for Russian oligarchs who increasingly, if they're not already under Putin's influence, that web is always expanding.
And there's going to be a lot more money laundering that the Russians are going to be capable of doing.
I feel like I've connected some dots here as far as what Elon Musk is up to.
He's looking at Putin's $2 trillion and saying, why can't I?
But let's continue this in another conversation.
Sean, come on back again soon and let's pick this up where we left off.
friend.
All right.
You bet.
Thanks, Sean.
Have a great day.
Sean O'Malley with us right now.
And when we come back, two members of the Wisconsin legislature and where we are in the state budget process, that's next.
You're up north.
We had played a temptation song earlier in today's history lesson as my girl went to number one this day in 1965.
So a little host discretion.
Any reason to play more temptations is why we do it.
735 coming up on here on Up North News Radio and we are joined by a pair of Wisconsin legislators, one brand new and one experienced to the point where she now serves on the powerful joint finance committee.
That would be State Senator Latanya Johnson.
Senator Johnson is both are joining us by phone.
Senator, are you there?
Yes, I am.
Hey, so nice to have you here.
Thank you very much for joining us this morning.
We are now into the swing of things with this legislative session.
We are past the state of the state address.
We are past the governor's address.
And we are past the other part of budget tradition in the legislature.
And that's where the Republican leadership say they're going to ignore the governor and they're going to start all over again.
So now that we've passed all those milestones, where are we now in it all?
It sounds to me like we're getting close to the road show where everybody around Wisconsin can get their two cents in on what should be in a state budget.
We are.
So yesterday we got tentative dates on the road show, but we didn't get specific locations.
So, we're still waiting for that information as to exactly where the roadshows will be, but we know that it's going to be in April.
Okay.
Yeah, and typically, they've had a little issue as the Republican leadership schedules joint finance public hearings.
They seem to forget places like, you know, the biggest city in the state.
and other larger communities.
I mean, nothing against rural Wisconsin.
I mean, everybody deserves to have their voice heard, but you put on a lot of miles on joint finance to hear from folks, don't you?
We do.
We do.
And we're hoping that we can get locations in Milwaukee and Madison this time.
But the thing that really bothers me about the Rhodes show is having people show up
extremely early in the morning, and then sometimes they'll stay until the end of the day, six o'clock, and we're just on 11 o'clock in the morning.
And so there has to be better ways to make sure that the individuals show up, have a better use of their time.
The way that we're doing things is just so antiquated.
It needs to be better because sometimes we show up in smaller communities and we're done before the day is even over and we get an opportunity to leave early.
But in places where we know that there's going to be a bigger population, we run out of time and everybody doesn't get to have their voice heard.
So there needs to be new ways to just ensure that everybody has the same opportunity to speak.
Yeah, I mean, look, this is just one idea and the committee, you know, will do whatever it wants, but it's a 16 member committee if memory serves.
You could go to places where there are, you know, four different meeting rooms or four different venues, put three Republicans and a Democrat on each panel and get four times as much input because it's all, it's all valuable.
As much as it would be nice to talk to all 16 members, you know, sometimes you just need to bend the ear of a couple of members on the
and maybe be able to persuade folks on the budget.
So I do hope they come up with a better process for you and for all the people testifying before the committee.
Let's turn to Representative Russell Goodwin for a moment and he's also from the Milwaukee area and brand new to the legislature.
Representative Goodwin, are you with us?
Yes, I am.
Oh, good.
Thank you for your patience.
Thank you for your patience.
We're running you both on the phones here, so we're actually bouncing between one line and the other.
Instead of usually if we had you all on video, we'd all be able to talk at once, but I appreciate you being here so much.
You've been in office here for, well, two months now.
What are your first impressions on what the gig has been like?
They have this term that everybody says you're drinking out of a fire hose.
Yes.
I think that's an understatement.
Without a doubt.
It's very overwhelming.
Has anything particularly impressed you or are there any topics that you're getting right to work on?
Right now, one of the main things I'm working on is reckless driving because it's affecting neighborhoods.
all over Wisconsin, mainly Milwaukee, but there are other areas that are having problems with reckless driving as well.
So that's one of the top things that I'm working on.
Is it about increasing penalties for it or is it about resources that can help reduce reckless driving, whether it's traffic infrastructure or more enforcement or whatever?
What kinds of ideas are being bounced around?
I think it's a combination of all, but it's just making sure that even with tougher penalties, making sure that they're still equitable and that they're not obsessive.
Because at the end of the day, those penalties should not be used to make money off of people.
But at the same time, we have to let people know that, hey, if you drive reckless, you're going to have to pay a penalty for it.
So is this a combination of making sure
that all of those efforts are balanced and that they're equitable and fair and not effective.
So that's that's one of the things that has to happen that I'm working on making sure that it's done in the right way.
And tell me about your
I'm
sorry, go ahead.
I was just gonna ask about your committee assignments.
I'm on the Urban Development Committee and I'm on the Jobs and Economy Committee.
All right, you know what?
Jobs and economy is a good place to pivot back over to Senator Johnson here for a second talking about the budget and the economy on here because Senator Johnson, you know how much Governor Tony Evers has had to say about investing in the things like education and workforce training that can address the labor shortage, addressing the childcare crisis would be another.
I don't feel like we're getting as much
from the Republican side of the aisle in terms of ideas for job creation other than cutting taxes?
Or am I missing some kind of bipartisan area where there could be agreement on improving jobs in the economy?
No, you're not.
We haven't heard much from the Republican side as to what they want to see in the budget at all.
The only thing that they've talked about is tax cuts.
And in, you know,
Everybody needs some form of tax relief.
Even the governor talked about trying to make sure that he holds the line on property taxes, especially for people with fixed income and to be able to distribute direct tax cuts directly to the taxpayers.
But the other thing with this budget that we need to keep in mind is that
the revenue estimates, as well as, you know, the estimates in terms of sale, they were issued based on an economy over the next two years that would see steady growth.
And I think we all recognize that at the federal level, it's created a level of uncertainty.
So, you know, a $4.3 billion surplus in our general fund,
It seems like a lot of money, but when we talk about our state relying on $28 billion each year from the federal government, if something falls short, especially when we look at areas like the Department of Children and Families or the Department of Human Services that rely heavily on federal funding,
Then that $4.3 billion isn't going to be enough to cover those hopes.
And so I would love to hear the Republicans talk more about that and what this state is going to do if we do fall short.
But I think that this budget is unlike any other.
There is just an error of uncertainty.
That's
how clouding it.
without a doubt.
And Representative Goodwin, you've served as a Milwaukee County supervisor.
You chaired the committee on transportation and public works.
And so you definitely appreciate the value of infrastructure and transportation.
And I wanted to get your impressions on what you would like to see in a state budget along those lines that would benefit the folks in the 12th Assembly District.
I will definitely infrastructure.
I would like to see a lot of the infrastructure improved.
A lot of our roads need a lot of work.
And quite frankly, working on that or tearing that particular committee, I found out that a lot of our roads are outdated.
And then there needs to be a lot of updates because what you have, just for example, when you come, when you transition into Milwaukee from Brookfield, you have the speed limits that are 70 miles per hour.
then you come into the 55 mile per hour zone, then when you get into Milwaukee, let's say you're headed to Monami Falls by my district, you'll go from 55 to 75 or 55 to 70.
There are ways to improve the roads where we could actually get a higher speed, but we can't do it because of the simple fact that those roads are outdated.
So there's our highways and our roads and our streets need a lot of updates.
And the reason why I say that specifically is because a lot of drivers are dealing with issues where you're transitioning from different speed limits.
And there are some drivers coming from other counties where they don't want to slow down from the 70 to 55.
So they're coming in a 55 at 70.
And then you're putting unwanted pressure on drivers that are driving in directly in the 55 mile per hour zone.
So I think there needs to be a lot of updates and a lot of looking at different avenues because all this can help to curb reckless driving.
So that's one of my takes on that.
And that's why I'm excited about what the governor is doing with that.
Very good.
We're talking with State Representative Russell Goodwin, a new member of the State Assembly, and State Senator Latanya Johnson, who's on the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee.
Senator Johnson, I've been asking you primarily about state budget matters and being on the Joint Finance Committee, but you too have a district that you represent and wanted to hear some of what you're hoping to get accomplished in this new session for the folks back home.
So my district is very diverse.
I sometimes say that I represent the tale of two cities.
For example, I represent one of the most expensive zip codes in the city of Milwaukee, which is 53203, which is your Pfizer forum, your Wisconsin Center District, the high rise condos in the downtown area that.
You know, you pay 1600 for a studio or a one-bedroom apartment, but I also represent one of the poorest zip codes in the city of Milwaukee, 53206, where the median resale of a house in that zip code prior to COVID was just $4,300.
So what I'm hoping to see in this budget is equity, equity for Milwaukee.
We've done a wonderful job in previous budgets of making sure that we put enough money in the budget to make sure that our downtown continues to grow because of the revenues that that brings in.
But of course that leaves other communities out because the resources are
I hope Senator Johnson might have cut out there for a minute.
So Representative Goodwin, I'll start to wrap things up with you then as well in terms of any other priorities that you're going to be looking at either inside or beyond the budget as you continue drinking from that fire hose.
Yeah.
Basically, like I said, I'm going to be working on reckless driving.
And one of the other promises that I gave was to make sure that our public schools are fully funded and fully staffed.
So I'm working really hard with stakeholders.
across the aisle as well to make sure that that happens in the every way possible.
All right.
Well, obviously there's some good representation coming out of the Milwaukee area from these folks and we appreciate you both spending a little bit of time with us, State Senator Latanya Johnson and Representative Russell Goodwin.
Thank you very much for your time.
I wish you all the best and hope to connect with you again real soon.
Thank you, and thank you for having us.
It's been a pleasure.
Thank you so much bet
you bet and senator Johnson.
Thank you, too.
Hope you have a really good day there It is always good.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you very much It's always good to connect with these folks again, and I say that from the standpoint of being a former legislator as well of getting an idea of
the workload that people don't see necessarily behind the scenes.
There's a lot of constituent service that goes on in there and there are a lot of, shall we say, small bipartisan bills that get passed.
that still, you know, resonate with folks back home.
Sometimes I know Democrats and Republicans from say the Chippewa Valley have to work together on some things and I'm sure Representative Goodwin understands full well the whole drinking from the fire hose situation.
But boy, once you, once you master it.
Once you're able to start helping the folks back home and work on that big state legislation, it is an extremely rewarding position and I hope that they both enjoy it very much.
We'll talk to Luke Mathers coming up to wrap things up on this Thursday after this.
You're up north.
One more from the go-go's who's a beauty in the beat album was number one this day back in what did I say 83 something like that Luke matters is here with us now Luke normally gets introduced with a couple of adjectives, but I have to tell a story first Luke was extremely helpful yesterday With a very basic answer to a problem that I was making way too complex.
Okay
So he helped me with it, and that's fine.
The details aren't important.
But I was telling Sherry about this last night, or having a couple of old fashions by the fire.
And I'm saying, oh, Luke was great.
He helped us with this thing.
She says, well, that's, isn't that why he's called the, the, the good looking and confident Luke matters?
Handsome and capable.
I mean, but I love that the good look.
Oh, he's the good looking, confident, good, good looking and confident or handsome and capable.
She's like, well, they're adjectives.
So there
you go.
Those are great.
A compliment is
a compliment.
That's
right.
Dr. Tritlow clearly is a listener, but not an avid listener.
That's what I'll boil it down to.
Yes,
she gets bits and pieces.
The commute in.
She's not listening to this part.
She gets the
important
parts.
All
right,
she understands.
That's right.
So the handsome and capable, good-looking and confident Mr. Mathers joins us now.
How are you
otherwise?
I'm good for a Thursday morning.
You know, it was a very short, false spring that we had right here.
And we're just right back into it.
But, you know, my wife was talking about there's snow again in its March.
And I was like, well, wait until you're going to be upset about the April snow that we're bound to get.
That's right.
That's what life here in Wisconsin
means.
It is exactly what we do here.
But that, you know, you're helping put together this Supreme Court event that we're doing next Wednesday at the Overture Center in Madison.
You can register for tickets.
Go to upnorthnewswi.com slash supreme and come attend.
We'll also set up a live streaming option and I, I believe we're still kicking around how, whether, when and why in terms of civic media broadcast, but we'll, we'll work on that as well.
the details hopefully will be able to be shared soon.
But we're looking forward to being able to bring it to everybody that's not able to attend in Madison over the civic media airwaves.
So now I can explain the problem that I had yesterday.
I was working on what's called the run of show or the TikTok or you would call it a schedule.
What panel starts when and who's going to moderate and who's going to be talking and who's going to fill time when one panel is done and the next panel is coming in.
and what time does the, you know, if we do broadcast it, this is the time that it would start.
Are we gonna do commercial breaks?
And I'm doing this whole thing like a good little broadcast professional that I am, a veteran pro.
professional broadcaster.
And I'm knowing that this thing's got to wrap up at six, 58, 50 in the evening to hit the ID and the seven o'clock news.
And somebody threw a curve at me yesterday and said, Nope, you got to wrap up by 645 because we've got to convert it into a watch party.
So we got to bring in the TVs and other things because the Supreme Court debate starts at seven.
They need 15 minutes to set up the chips and dip and all the other things needed for the watch party.
Yeah.
So I'm having a mild freak out over.
Okay, but if we end this at 645, I mean, who's going to fill till 70?
Does Pete Schwabba come in and talk for 15 minutes or whatever?
Luke just says so quietly.
Well, it's right across the street from the radio station, right?
I said, yeah.
He says, you could send Dan Schaefer and Todd Alba across the street while you're moderating the final panel.
And by the time you're done moderating the panel at 645, they could just be at the studio and take it till seven o'clock, right?
And I wish it was a phone call.
I wish you could have seen the look when I realized how dumb I must have sounded trying to square this circle about 645 and who kills time.
And it looks like they could go across the street.
You're a genius.
Sometimes it works out that way.
This is why you are so
good looking and confident.
Luke
says,
Luke says, they can just go across the street and they'll be ready to go.
And then in Pat's head.
That was so me at that moment.
Oh, man.
But we all know sometimes you can overthink things.
Yeah, sometimes, especially when there's a lot of different moving parts, you want to make sure that you keep all the plates spinning.
And sometimes it's easier just to hand off one of those spinning plates to somebody else so you don't have to keep them spinning.
Fresh
eyes are
always
important in production,
always.
Yep.
I also, when I get done with this, we've talked about some of the panelists who are going to be on and Representative Francesca Hong sent me a note and right away called...
called out an omission that I made.
We're actually adding state representative Christian Phelps from the Eau Claire area to the education panel as well.
So we've got one other person to add.
We did lose one of our panelists who had another event, a more pressing concern.
So that's part of the reason you want to attend or tune in.
I'll do it.
I'll do it.
Yeah, exactly.
I'll be there.
Everything is TBD.
In fact, the name of the show ought to be TBD, because so much of it is to be determined.
Man, I love Civic
Media.
That tibda show is so good.
It's tibda.
So much good information.
I don't know what's coming next.
The tibid.
Hey, Yana's hitting 20,000 points yesterday.
Yeah.
That's a lot of points
for
one
game.
It was kind of unfair because the Mavs are so just injury-ridden.
I didn't watch a whole lot.
Yeah, but Yannis breaking that milestone and immediately after the game saying, don't worry, I'm going to get 30,000.
It just warms my heart because I'm like, yes, Yannis.
Now, Giannis, forever, just continue painting the murals, continue building statues.
This man, he's just Milwaukee through and through, and I can't wait to watch his 30,000th bucket with... Oh, my God, that's not what I heard.
Well, hey, thanks.
Thanks for jinxing it all.
So when his career ends with injury next year, it's Luke Mathers, the good looking... Giannis said it wasn't my fault.
I'm just saying, put that on
me.
Hey, hold
on.
Both of you, stop.
I'm going to go Goldilocks and go right in the middle.
I hope you have a good time.
Have fun with your friends.
Do your best that you can.
All right.
All right.
Luke, you too.
You do the best that you can.
And thank you for spending a little time with us.
Oh, it was a pleasure.
And thank you for solving my complex problems so easily.
You're the best.
Greg Bach is back in two hours for Matt and Air on Air as well.
So, tuning in for that.
And thank you for being a part of Up North News Radio.
For this Thursday morning, I'm Pat Critello.
Have a great Thursday.
We'll see you Friday morning at 6 a.m.
here up north.
