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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
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 Friday morning, April 18th.
Nice to have you along.
Coming up in just a bit, we will have our regular Friday journalist, Mark Jacob and Jennifer Schulze talking about the many, many, many.
Headlines coming out of the Trump administration this week and almost none of them are good.
So we offer our standard disclaimer.
Don't wallow in them, but you got to hear about them.
You got to know what's going on out there in the world.
So we'll talk about it and some of the coverage of this week's events as well.
Jim Santel normally joins us.
He's got a family commitment and we wish him all the best and look forward to having him back hopefully as early as next week.
It is a rainy one, a stormy one in parts of central and southern Wisconsin right now, looking at the radar here and looking at meteorologist Brittany Merleau, who's joining us now to tell us all about it.
And that included, I don't know if you saw this or not, Brittany, but in the civic media chat, Terry Barges put up a photo of some pea-sized hail in the southeastern part of Madison.
Absolutely.
I mean, there is a pretty big storm going on right now that just passed through Madison.
It is headed towards Lake Mills, Fort Atkinson, Whitewater, Jamesville and continuing to move east towards the Milwaukee area where there's a severe thunderstorm warning going on.
And there have been reports of baseball size hail and Platteville.
ping pong ball sized hail in Nuglares and this thing is just continuing to build and work its way through the southern part of the state so be careful of that hail that is damaging hail right there that could shatter out glass um so stay away from windows stay inside put that car in the garage do those things that you got to do now in Milwaukee before it heads your way but everybody else we are just looking at light rain spreading for the Fox Valley into central Wisconsin it's just regular rain maybe some rumbles of thunder so
As we go through the day today, we're going to actually see after the storm passes, a little lull, some scattered showers still will linger.
And then the bigger storms will start to build later on this evening where the severe threat returns once again for southeastern Wisconsin, mainly south of Milwaukee to about Lake Geneva and then over into Kenosha and Racine.
you guys are potentially going to hit temperatures into the 70s today.
And if you do, beware, especially after five o'clock, because that is when the next line of storms could start to build.
Those could also pack large, large hail, just like this one this morning is.
We're also looking at wind gusts up to 60 to 70 miles per hour with those.
And a tornado or two can't be ruled out, but a little less likely than the actual hail and high winds with those storms.
We're also looking at a lot more rainfall too, another half an inch to an inch throughout the day today.
this is going to essentially eliminate the drought conditions for most of the state.
So that is good news, especially for the farmers and people ready to plant.
But of course we have to be safe tonight.
So be careful out there.
The storms do wind down.
We do see some sunshine for the rest of the weekend and highs really hanging out in those mid fifties.
All right.
And I see Luke Mathers reporting hail and sun prairie as well.
And I got to say, folks might recall that a little over a year ago,
Sherry's car was totaled by a terrible hail storm up in the Rice Lake area.
Folks still get a little spooked with, I mean, any hail whatsoever.
And they get, you know, they get a little nervous.
Because that was something really wicked that came through.
So I hope that this doesn't do much damage to...
cars or people or houses or anything.
Rob says, good morning from Tigerton, cloudy and 47.
We picked up just over a half an inch of rain overnight, a peaceful night with rain hitting the windows.
It was a very calming sound.
Good thing we got rain overnight.
There was a grass fire a few miles from my house.
I want to wish my three favorite people a very happy Easter.
Pat, Greg, thank you.
Isn't today a day of celebration for a certain group of people, though?
Oh, yeah.
Let me look back on the calendar today.
That's
true.
Let's see, it was National Marbles Day.
Yeah.
Was it Marbley?
National Pinata Day.
Yep.
National Amateur Radio Day.
Someone say that's me.
Oh, oh, this one.
This is on the National Day Challenge.
This is Line Man Appreciation Day.
If you are a lineman, maybe say in the Wichita area, this one's for you.
All right.
Yeah.
I wonder how many linemen actually listen to this show and go, hey, that's for me.
They say,
I am a lineman for the cow-gee.
And I drive the main road.
We're getting in there, Brittany.
We're getting
in.
And by the way, for folks listening going, what's the backstory?
Why do they serenade Brittany with Wichita Lineman?
We have no idea.
We don't know.
I seriously have to go back on the tapes and go, what made that happen?
Anyway, Rob jumps in on YouTube.
Brittany, you're going to have this song on your mind.
Yes, you are.
It's a beautiful
song.
Drive home listening to it.
You'll just be like, yeah,
I did a
small vacation.
I guarantee you, if you play it once, you're gonna play it.
Oh, yeah.
I'm serious there.
Brittany, thank you.
Happy Easter.
Have a great weekend.
Have a great weekend, Brittany.
You too.
All right.
Again, you can sign up for our daily newsletter.
Head over to UpNorthNewsWI.com.
Click subscribe in the top banner.
There is also a new weekend newsletter that I put out on Sunday mornings that sums up the week in Wisconsin politics.
We talked in our last hour about one political story from yesterday.
with the Wisconsin Elections Commission and one of its members, Robert Spindel, who actually is forever known as fake-elector Bob Spindel as serving as one of the fake-electors who probably should have faced steeper penalties for trying to impersonate electors and trying to undermine an American election.
But regardless, he's still on the Elections Commission and caused a bit of a shouting match yesterday by continuing to spew
Milwaukee conspiracy theories about voting.
So take that as you will for our elections commission.
They were looking into the situation of missing absentee ballots in Madison when Spindel decided to pop off about Milwaukee, which was decidedly not on the agenda because there aren't any issues there, except the ones that people love to make up for political purposes.
Uh, somewhat related to that, there's a story as well about how Wisconsin's Republican party has established a process that will allow the party to remove Republican officials for poor behavior.
Uh, this is a journal Sentinel story I'm looking at about tensions between the state party and a number of local Republican leaders continues to boil.
And we saw that most notably in Northeast Wisconsin where you have you even have a newly elected chair who hasn't officially taken over as chair yet because you don't actually take over till after the state convention but is already advertising themselves as you know part of the new regime and It's not sitting well with some of the other members of county Republican parties in that area.
So now the state Republican Party
has had to set up a process to remove people whose behavior crosses the line.
I do have some good news to share.
This also from the Milwaukee paper about a small technical college here in the state.
Southwest Wisconsin Technical College in Fenimore has won the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence
It is an honor recognizing it as the best among 1000 community colleges across the nation.
It is the first time that a Wisconsin institution has won the prize, the prize that former President Obama dubbed the Oscars for community colleges.
So again, we want to congratulate those folks in Fenimore for a real quality education that got noticed from a national level.
Uh, starting after the next break here, when we talk to Mark, Jacob and Jennifer Scholes here, we're going to be going through a lot of headlines about the Trump administration this week and coverage of it.
I just want to call attention to a couple of them ahead of time just because of their Wisconsin connections.
So later we'll get into coverage of the Trump administration, maybe pulling out of any, any support for Ukraine.
Uh, we'll talk about.
you know, abuse of the internal revenue service.
We'll talk about layoffs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
But there are things that are hitting Wisconsin as well, such as the wrecking ball that the administration has taken to AmeriCorps, which is threatening future response to natural disasters and other concerns.
There were projects going on in Milwaukee and elsewhere.
There is a CNFDA plan to end routine food safety inspections.
Nothing wrong with that, right?
There's a plan to cut $40 billion out of the Department of Health and Human Services.
This would involve eliminating dozens of programs focused on various public health challenges like autism, teen pregnancy.
lead poisoning, opioid recovery, reducing infant mortality, firearms injuries, drowning, support for rural hospitals, and eliminating Head Start.
And yes, that damage is already being done in Wisconsin.
According to the Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin Head Start programs have now received less than half the federal funding they were expecting this year.
Compared to the same time last year, a drop of more than $35 million that would have supported early childcare services for low-income families.
And from the New York Times this morning, Milwaukee's lead crisis, flaky paint, closed schools, and a CDC in retreat.
The story notes that some children have been exposed to lead.
Investigators have found flaking paint inside of aging schools.
Two federal experts who were expected to help guide the response have just lost their jobs in the Trump cutbacks.
And so when you already had Milwaukee schools severely underfunded and unable to deal with these crises, and now they're not getting any federal help either, you still have Wisconsin children being exposed to lead.
at an unacceptable level.
Now, but all these, these cuts, let me make something clear.
You are not going to see any kind of financial benefit.
You're not.
There are people saying, oh, all these cuts, all these cuts, well, that's got to be good for us, more money in my pocket.
No, no, it's going to buy billionaires.
It's going to pay for billionaires to buy more stuff.
Billionaires will get to buy more because of massive tax cuts for them.
Just keep in mind that
even if all of these cuts were turned into cash and sent back to you, the needs would still be there.
And however they were addressed, if they were going to be addressed at all, it would certainly cost more and do less.
Look, people laugh at the notion that, you know, government services are delivered more efficiently, but they laugh only because you've become jaded by our own cynicism.
We take a handful of stories about inefficiency,
And then we paint with a broad brush, tarring all of the many things that get done properly every single day when good people are in charge of public service.
But you can always lift a couple of the lower performing examples as some kind of reason to justify massive cuts.
But now all the things that people think just magically happen every day, don't.
And it's going to cost more money to restore or address these crises down the road.
Jennifer Schulze and Mark Jacob are coming up next.
You're
up north.
Yeah, it's a Yacht Rock kind of Friday on this April 18th on Up North News Radio, which will not be Up North News Radio for much longer as we undergo a name change next week and we grow the show to three hours, six to nine a.m.
on weekdays, all part of a brand new lineup across the Civic Media Radio Network.
Folks like Chad Holmes and Earl Ingram will now be
Heard more on on this show as it expands to three hours and they'll get to do all kinds of special projects and Conversations so stick around for all of that starting next Wednesday across the civic media radio network Mark Jacob and Jennifer shows you're here Jim Santel is off this week Jennifer are you hearing us?
Okay?
Jennifer can you hear us?
Nope.
She cannot
Jennifer is going to work on her audio settings over there.
So I'll put her in the waiting room while she tweaks those.
Mark, how are you?
I'm doing great.
All right.
Let's see.
Where do where do we start?
Let me start with this New York Times story about Ukraine.
Just because of the things that are are missing here and
I don't know that I'm necessarily nitpicking on this.
The headline says US to decide in days if an end to the war in Ukraine is doable.
Marco Rubio says, if it is not possible to end the war in Ukraine, we need to move on.
I'm sorry, we need to move on.
His remarks ratchet up pressure on both sides to end the war and appeared intended to inject urgency into efforts to prod Volodymyr Zelensky
the Ukrainian president toward compromise.
President Trump said he was not a big fan of the Ukrainian leader.
He's not a big fan of the Ukrainian leader.
Missing right after that, Mark, should be the part about Donald Trump being impeached for extortion, for
trying to
extort Vladimir Zelensky.
He's not a pressure target.
He's the victim of a crime that Donald Trump got away with.
Right.
Although you couldn't do the next sentence saying that Trump earlier this week accused Zelensky of starting the war, which is, you know, do another just crazy town kind of thing because, you know, so, so clearly, you know, he's working for Putin, you know, in some way or some form or fashion.
And I mean, I do think that he may want to try to ratchet up the pressure on Putin too.
But, you know, I mean, you got this clown show of
Trump and Rubio, I have no faith in their ability to reach an agreement to end the worst war in Europe since World War Two.
No, especially because we know the side that they're on.
And so you have Europe saying, we need this for our security.
And the US saying, no, we'd rather take Russia's side in this now.
And
I don't know where it goes from here other than just to point out, A, that the Trump administration is getting this close to pulling out, and B, it just appears like our national media are not raising the context of what Donald Trump's history is with Ukraine, and it would help them realize that he's not being an honest broker, shall we say.
Right, right.
Well, there is this kind of amnesia in the media where, well, in one of the part of the mentality may be that they think everyone knows all this stuff, which they don't.
People forget things.
Another is that they think it's old news or that it's unfair.
I mean, when the media report that Trump says something, I think they should cast a little shadow on it and say, you know, who has often exaggerated or who has lied tens of thousands of times.
They'll never do that, Pat.
But...
They you know, they should I mean that when you report that he says something and he's an obvious documented Serial liar you might want to mention that
you might and Jennifer is with us now by phone because Jennifer only paid half of her internet bill apparently Jennifer shame on you Let's let's have let's have you you you jump in on this whole notion of
the press providing fuller context of Donald Trump's past activities and biases, as opposed to just trying to treat the current so-called negotiations as some kind of a standalone thing.
There's got to be better context provided, I think.
Well, the failure to provide context about Donald Trump is now a 10-plus year problem with the press.
And I do not understand if it's a cowardice.
if it's a rush to get something out.
The New York Times today not mentioning in one sentence how Donald Trump promised to end this war on day one, but instead going through this, well, Rubio says, blah, blah, blah.
It is a consistent problem and it's not accidental.
It's intentional and it's so weird to me because
because it's bad journalism, but that rule does not apply to other politicians that they cover.
So there is something really particular about the failure to put Donald Trump in context.
How much of that is an access issue?
Because even though a court has ordered the Trump administration to stop banning the Associated Press,
the administration continues to do so.
I mean, they're doing these, you know, verbal gymnastics to say, well, technically it's no longer a ban, but of course it is.
And I just wonder like, well, if they can ban the Associated Press, I guess they can ban us.
And so, you know, we have to pull our punches.
Is that part of what this is?
I
think it's only part of it.
I think I definitely think there's a fear of being kicked out.
And as Mark has long suggested,
Journalists covering the White House and covering Trump would actually do better journalism if they got out of the White House.
But I think it's worse than that.
I think there's just some blinders on.
I mean, I think the New York Times is one of the worst offenders.
They say, like, they never think things are as bad or Trump's as bad.
And so I think they just, by matter, it's policy to pull their punches on him.
I hate
to
say that, but I'm not sure there's any evidence that it's
not.
I don't that they're just not the police chief going to move along people.
There's nothing to see here when, in fact, there is something to see here.
He's not that bad.
Everything's fine.
We did a Trump story.
We're good.
I think it's very self-obsessed of the media.
I think that they're worried about looking like they're
slanted.
And so they don't want to mention some of the obvious facts that create context for Trump.
I just did a search on the New York Times website for the term convicted felon.
And the last story in the New York Times that used the term convicted felon was on January 23rd.
Yeah,
I mean...
That
really seems to be like it's not relevant.
There are present United States as a convicted felon and we can't remind people about that in three months.
A valuable piece of context to include.
We'll pick up this conversation on the other side of the break.
The Midwest Farm Report for some of you and we'll be back right after this on Up North News Radio.
Now, normally we would be joined by former U.S.
Attorney Jim Santel.
He's off today, but a reminder that you can hear his program, Amicus, a law review Saturday mornings from 9 to 11 across the Civic Media Radio Network.
Learn more at civicmedia.us and there's a playback on Sunday as well.
You can get Mark Jacobs' newsletter.
Stopthepresses.News is the place to go for that.
Look for his on target video series as well with Stephen Beschloss and of course,
Jennifer Scholes you joins us on the phone this week.
You can get her newsletter in distinct chatter on substack go to substack.com slash at news Jennifer and trying to figure out where we're going to pick things up here.
I want to start I guess where we were last hour with the case of Kilmar, Abrego, Garcia and
being disappeared off the streets and sent to essentially a concentration camp in El Salvador.
We talked about that a bit with Keva Keelastauer.
Since the time that we had recorded that interview, Senator Van Hollen from Maryland had been granted a visit with him.
apparently in a hotel lobby or something like that, the circumstances of the visit and the photo and everything else appears to be, you know, uncertain, but at least for the moment, it seems that there is proof of life.
But Mark, let me, let me start with you.
The point that I was making with Kia last hour is that the Trump administration and Trump supporters are so desperate to turn
Mr. Abrego Garcia into like this terrible person like like secretly this guy who was in a Home Depot parking lot is actually the leader of MS-13 or something like that.
They had no idea of knowing who was going to be the first you know case about disappearing.
El Salvadorans off the street that was going to get publicity I'm sure they took a gamble thinking well Democrats in the media are gonna back somebody they're gonna raise them up to a certain level and it's gonna turn out this person's you know pedophile or something like that and what you have in the case of Kilmour or Brego Garcia is somebody who has been following the process right nobody's saying he was an angel
But I mean, you look at this administration is sane and doing anything now to try to make him into something that's going to make people look bad for wanting him to have due process.
Right.
I mean, he, you know, he got a ruling.
He could stay in the country.
He has been reporting as ordered, you know, regularly.
And so his status, it's not like he's like hiding in the shadows.
He's he's he was there just.
following the law and So for them now first thing, you know, if this isn't really a deportation, this is a kidnapping.
I mean they took him out of the country with no Ruling no due process.
No, you know, nothing no hearing no anything they took him out of the country and put him in in a Stinking a terrible prison in another country and
By the way, they owned the country that he was specifically not supposed to be deported back to during the court proceedings They said that he was in danger if he went to El Salvador.
So where did they send him El Salvador and and and so Because they're not having any kind of court hearing they
Have decided to try it in the court of public opinion by lying all the time and by you know But by inventing these stories about how he's some sort of key leader in MS-13 and they can get away with it because they're not Committing perjury because they're talking to Fox News not to a judge.
Yeah Jennifer
The role that the press can play in something like this is maybe one that I think they should embrace, but maybe some of them, you know, feel repelled by.
And that is explaining the basics of democracy.
And the fact of the matter is, if you stopped some people on the street and asked them to explain due process, they couldn't really tell you what, what due process is.
Not to mention the fact that due process is something that is afforded to anybody in the United States, not just citizens, anybody, because
Otherwise, you do live in an authoritarian regime where you can have the government literally abduct people off the streets.
Is that something that you think could be done a little bit more as explaining things like due process and other things that are foundational to democracy?
Would that help people understand the lawlessness of the current administration?
Oh, heck yes.
The one positive, and I say that ironically, about the second Trump administration is that we are being forced to learn about things we should already know about, like separation of power, like due process, like what federal workers actually do.
I think Americans generally are woefully uninformed about many things including our very own government and this is uh this has been a slap in the face in a way for a lot of people it's like what I don't know what that means and you know whose responsibility is it to to
teach people that?
Well, I think that, you know, it's not just the press for sure.
But, you know, because of the strains on the media the last so many years, explainers are not something that have been very popular.
People are more interested in quick hits and beating the competition to the latest headline or the latest gotcha.
And the explainers that would normally accompany a lot of this coverage is lacking, although some places do it.
Vox has a whole series of explainers where they talk about these different things that come up in the news.
But yeah, it's a big hole in our knowledge about our own country.
And so, like I said, one positive might be that we're forced to
find out about some stuff we should already know about.
Yes, we should indeed.
And that includes telling the truth.
And Mark, one of your most recent columns is the professional lying that goes on at the White House, not just at the top, but that 27-year-old who's standing at the podium every day with, you know, a cross around her neck and acting in what some would say is a most un-Christian way.
Right, bearing false witness with a cross around her neck.
And it's the Caroline Levitt.
And I got to tell you, you know, that
installment of my thought the presses newsletter was is by a double the most popular One I've done in the 16 months.
I've been writing this newsletter Because I think people are sick of it I think people are sick of people standing in front of them in the White House and just lying lying lying lying and it's not like it's not like well It's just a matter of opinion if you talk about the kind of stuff I dealt with in the column.
It's like she's saying stuff like
There's no doubt President Trump has always been the hardest working man in politics.
She says that after he spent the weekend golfing, after tanking the economy with this tariff stuff, they say that the American people gave him an overwhelming mandate.
Well, he didn't win half the vote.
So it's just lie, after lie, after lie, after lie.
And I think people are outraged by it.
And Caroline Levitt is just the latest, but the thing that gets me,
Pat and Jennifer is that she does it with such confidence.
It's like she thinks she's killing it.
She thinks she's doing a great job and she's just the smartest person in the room and she's just lying, lying, lying, lying.
And some people see it, but I think it works a little bit because she gets on television a lot and the news media often don't fact check her.
No, and you know, if there's one goal that I've seen many a 27 year old have, it's to get on TV all the time.
Can we, as we get into the specific headlines of the week, and Mark, I'll start with you on this one, simply because of you and you and I having advanced age on Jennifer here, old enough to remember the Nixon administration, when again,
trying to use the IRS for your own personal aims.
And yet that's exactly what Donald Trump is doing, going after Harvard and goodness knows what other targets that we haven't even learned about yet.
And again, it strikes me as one of those things where any one of these things, you would expect Republicans, citizens and elected officials to go, whoa, wait a minute.
I'm really kind of lost on how using the IRS to go after your enemies isn't one of those moments for more people.
Yeah well Republican politicians I think you just got to give up on them.
I just they've just joined the other side.
I mean they've just they've joined the traitor party and they're going to be they're going to do horrible things because they want to get keep on getting reelected.
I mean why did
you know that got that senator in Louisiana who was uh who's a doctor why did he support rfk jr he knew he knew that he shouldn't but he did because he wants to get reelected why did joni erntston iowa support pete hegseth for defense secretary she's a veteran
She would she definitely knows and people were looking to her for guidance and she went for Hexeth because she wanted to get reelected and so these people have just decided their career is more important than the country and so they're not I guess they're not going to but I agree with you back to the FBI thing I mean the IRS thing that's that is it's just it just obviously shouldn't happen.
that they're going to decide that Harvard, of all places, is not a legitimate nonprofit that has to get tax exempt status.
This is like they're using every lever of the government, abusing every lever of the government, to try to force Harvard to knuckle under.
And who does things like that?
Dictators do things like that.
Right.
Jennifer, along the lines of Harvard, I think as well,
I believe I've only seen this in one place, if even so, I may even be mistaken, but I'm kind of surprised I don't see more press coverage of what is it exactly this money that's going to Harvard and these other universities, Columbia and others that the Trump administration wants to pull back on.
This isn't some kind of, you know, welfare for education.
A lot of this is research that is done on behalf of the American people, but being done
at these, you know, accredited, prestigious institutions rather than, again, trying to set up another government agency to do research.
This is just a natural place to find the advancements in disease and everything else.
And I get the impression too many people think it's still just some kind of a handout that these colleges are getting.
Well, see, here's another example of what we don't know about how things work in our own country.
And I will credit both
Harvard and now Northwestern, and I hope other colleges and universities follow their lead, they have turned their websites over now to tell the stories of what this government money has been used for through the years.
You can go to Harvard's website or Northwestern University's website and they
We'll talk about the projects that have been funded, the breakthroughs that have been, you
know,
the result of these research projects.
Yes, I think that Trump would like the country to think that somehow Harvard is getting these big fat checks to do it whatever it wants with this taxpayer money, when in fact,
critical research that has impacted all of us is happening at these universities every day.
And this is the system that we have set up in our country.
You know, the government helps fund research into everything, not just medical things, but all kinds of things.
And it's important and we all benefit from it.
But Trump has the advantage.
because people don't know that and they don't understand it.
So I do appreciate that the universities themselves are starting to tell their own story in a more aggressive way.
I think that we do need, again, some explainers about that.
How does research money work?
And what's the path that it takes?
And why is it in the taxpayer's interest to help support this?
And what will
happen if it doesn't?
Now, schools can do that, of course, but government agencies can't once they've been taken over.
And so when you get a headline like this one from CBS, the FDA is making plans to end its routine food safety inspections.
Hello.
Now, nobody from the FDA, of course, can speak up because they face being fired.
But Mark, there have to be other allies that speak on behalf of FDA, that speak on behalf of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, that speak on behalf of AmeriCorps, that
speak on behalf of Health and Human Services because if they don't, again, folks will not appreciate that there's a lot of good things that happen out there that are being stripped away.
Well, I would like to say the news media do a better job at that.
I mean, that consumer protection stuff, that like kept.
Banks from ripping off people with these exorbitant fees, you know and stuff like that and so you know so so good news media would go find the people who got ripped off and or got saved from being ripped off and Explain what would have happened to them if there had been that bureau had not existed and by the way That I feel like people need to the news meetings point out that this stuff is illegal I mean that that bureau was was funded by Congress and Congress did not vote to unfund it
But the government, the Trump administration has fired all the employees.
And so that's a rogue operation to go around Congress and the wishes of Congress.
It's really something that doge isn't being treated more like an invasive species, essentially.
It is, you know, an illegal existential threat to a lot of things that protect Americans and things, services that we hold dear.
Mark Jacob, as always, thank you, Jennifer Schulze.
Good to talk to you guys.
Have a very good weekend.
We'll talk to you next week.
See you then.
All right.
Bye.
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.
Hey, I've given you everything I can to have a good start to the weekend here.
I've given you some laughs.
I've given you Yacht Rock.
I've given you Grateful Dead and I'm giving you Dan Schumacher.
I'm throwing everything at the wall here kids and if anything sticks, it's Dan.
Dan is he's got the stickiness when it comes to throwing them against the wall and for your for your listening pleasure where we got to start Dan if we're gonna talk sports for the weekend.
I mean we got to start with the big
sports event of the week.
It is just everybody is talking about it.
It is everywhere.
It is, of course, the play-in tournament for the NBA postseason where the number nine and 10 teams have a chance to unseat the seven and eight teams.
Again, it's like throwing everything at the wall and the NBA hoping that it sticks.
You're following this very closely, of course, right?
Absolutely
not.
Yeah.
Um, no, I haven't found it a little bit.
I've been I've been just keeping my eyes on the Lakers.
I don't know why I think I mentioned it last week.
I mean, you know, he built, he's got another super team.
So, um, I don't know how they're gonna, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.
You see that Lakers won it all.
So, uh, I don't know, um, my Chicago Bulls are playing pretty well too.
But so, so the bucks,
but
who's the first game for the play in?
Let's see, according to, after I get rid of all the pop-up ads at NBA.com, it says that the Bulls and Sacramento have been eliminated and Orlando and Golden State advance as the seven seeds in the playoffs.
Yeah, so then we've got...
Cleveland still to take on somebody TBD Boston versus Orlando New York versus Detroit and of course the Pacers versus the Bucks Oklahoma TBD Houston Golden State Lakers versus the Timberwolves.
Oh, I didn't know that
Denver versus the
Clippers
so
Lakers Timberwolves.
Yeah, look the Timberwolves have been Without a doubt the most snake bit franchise since they were an expansion team back in
1990.
Yes.
Uh, they just, they cannot, you know, they are Sisyphus pushing that, that boulder up the hill.
Just a, I don't even know why I'm saying this out loud because it's not going to happen, but imagine if the Timberwolves eliminated the Lakers.
Oh my
goodness.
They wouldn't even have to win the NBA championship after that.
That would just
be done.
Be like, you guys win.
That's fine.
You're good.
I'm done.
Actually,
you know what, Pat?
When Kristen and I first got married and we were living in St.
Paul, back in 91, there was a limited 10 game season ticket package for the Timberwolves.
And her and I said, let's do it.
So we did.
So the first game we attended was the game that Rodman kicked the guy in the groin.
First game that we took our season tickets for, Rodman gets kicked out.
for kicking somebody in the cameraman in the groin or something like that.
That's right.
Yes.
Oh my goodness.
All right.
Well, there you go.
So good luck, Timberwolves.
Good luck.
And the Bucks have, you know, they've had problems against the Pacers for the past couple of years here.
And of course, they are there.
The road team, this thing starts in Indianapolis.
And how do you like how you can't, if you want to follow the Bucks Pacers, you got to start with the ESPN.
on Saturday, NBA TV next Tuesday, NBA TV next Friday for game three.
And then TNT late Sunday for game four.
It's a little it's I mean, you're used to it with the NCAA tournament because, you know, 64 teams, it's going to be out of four channels.
This seems a little silly.
It does.
It does.
It's like, it's
like,
I don't even know who thought of
it.
Why?
What was the purpose of it?
Money
wasn't working before It's again that quote from from Donald Meyer who used to run NBC Sports his famous quote is the answer to all your questions is money Which it takes us to takes us to baseball where your Chicago Cubs are in first place in the National League Central a game up on the Brewers The Cubs are 12 and 9 the Brewers are 10 and 9 How are you feeling about your cubby so far?
Well the pitching's holding up so that's that's all you know
That's all you can hope for right now, because it's a long season, long season, long season.
But it's going to be neck and neck as we talked about last week.
I think it's going to be neck and neck the whole year.
Nobody's going to run away with this.
I don't think
and that would true that would truly make me happy because I know there's people like oh no I want you know I want to dominate you know the season and everything no if it were brewers and cubs and there was always like one or two games separating them all season long like a true horse race yeah yeah yeah yeah that'd be great
It would be.
I'd be totally good with that.
All right, so the Brewers continue their homestay on this weekend.
They are playing the athletics.
The West Sacramento Athletics, before they go on the road, they are at San Francisco to play the Giants Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, then in St.
Louis, then in Chicago to play the White Sox.
So a long road trip coming up here, but Dan...
Tell me you agree with me that if they're going to play, if the athletics are going to play at a minor league ballpark in West Sacramento, they can't just call themselves the athletics.
They should be forced to put West Sacramento on the uniform.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Where are the Marlins playing?
Uh, the Marlins are in the Yankees facility and I don't know if that actually that one is in Tampa, I think the, the major league stadium, which got damaged last year is in St.
Petersburg.
So
it
was the only way you could get somebody to actually play in the city where they're based.
But again, a minor league stadium, not a great look for baseball to have two of their teams in minor league stadiums this year.
That's what I'm thinking.
That's not exactly what I'm thinking.
And I haven't heard any plans on what they're going to do down in St.
Petersburg or Tampa.
I mean, they're going to repair the roof or they're just saying, no, it's just condemn it and build a new
one.
It's a great question.
I don't know the answer to that.
Maybe they don't know either.
Maybe they're just like, wait, this is the only crowd we can attract.
We can fill out a minor league ballpark.
So let's just keep doing that.
So we'll see.
There's any insurance on the place.
Can you imagine being the state farm guy for that?
Jake is there with his clipboard.
I don't know about this.
Dan Chumacher.
Thank you so much.
Have a good weekend.
We'll see you a little later.
Have a good Easter.
Have a good Easter.
Greg Buck is back in two hours.
Matt Nair on air.
What you got going there?
We got James Vanderloo, who is the head of the OEC group talking about tariffs.
and their effect on local business.
And in the second hour, Dan Schaefer will re-combobulate the news and we'll end it all with this shouldn't be a thing.
All right, thank you.
Have a very good weekend.
Happy Easter to you.
Hope everybody has a wonderful and safe holiday weekend out there.
Enjoy it.
Thanks for joining us for Up North News Radio.
Big do-ins next Wednesday when we expand the show, get a new name, new guests, all kinds of fun stuff.
So stick around for that.
We'll see you Monday.
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