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Spotlight.
Welcome to the second hour of the special edition of the Civic Media Spotlight.
In this hour of the Civic Media Spotlight, we have the best four segments from Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
In this segment, Brian and Jamie talk about for years people have been hoping to get rid of the Electoral College.
Well now, there's a little bit of momentum from states that are trying to do just that.
Brian and Jamie discuss the Electoral College and what a change would mean.
Want to join in on the conversation?
Call or text 855-757.
Now back to Brian and
Jamie.
635 right now.
Thank you so much for joining us this morning.
Hopefully you are dry.
Hopefully the storms have been kind to your area.
But if you're in Madison listening on WMDX, Appleton or Oshkosh listening on WISS, WASA on WXCO, or in Eau Claire on 93.5 the tap, we're glad that you decided to join us this morning.
My name is Jamie Martinson.
And I'm Brian Noonan and just stay as Jamie likes to say weather aware today.
We're not out of the woods yet.
More storms coming in this afternoon into this evening.
Possibility of them being severe again.
So just keep an eye to the sky and keep listening to the radio and we'll tell you what's happening.
Should.
We finally go to the popular vote as the final word for electing a president, 85575 Civic, 8557524842.
We could be one step closer.
This is of getting rid of this pesky electoral college.
A national majority vote for president is one step closer because Virginia's governor Abigail Spanberger signed a national popular vote bill into law.
She joined an interstate compact with 17 other states in the District of Columbia, and you may be saying, why are you telling us this?
Because Wisconsin is one of those states in the 17 state compact.
So under this compact, states would assign their presidential electors to the winner of the popular vote, regardless of the results within the state.
It don't matter.
You win the vote, you get it.
It takes effect when states representing a majority of electoral vote pass the legislation and thus will determine the winner of the presidential contest.
Right now we've got
200, they have 270 of the 538 votes.
They
need 270 of the five.
They need
270 of
the five.
Okay.
Oh, two, they have
222,
right.
Got
it.
So they're a little short.
They're a little short, but I
think
this is promising.
And every state that has so far enacted the compact has democratic electoral majorities.
And so,
of
course, you're talking about states like California, New York, and Illinois.
But as you mentioned, Wisconsin, also part of that.
including, there's other swing states involved already as well, including Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania too.
I find this, here's the thing.
The Electoral College was created in 1787, right?
This was a compromise because the forefathers were essentially trying to figure out who should pick the president, who should pick Congress, who should pick the people.
They weren't really fully trusting either option.
So they landed somewhere in the middle, which was the Electoral College, right?
Because they allowed the states to choose the electors and those electors then picked the president.
And they had their reasons behind it.
One of them is because they wanted to protect the smaller populated states because if everything was based
is purely a population, then those larger states were gonna dominate elections.
It also forced candidates to build support across different regions, not just the big cities.
And it was also, this is also the part that people don't really wanna talk about, but it's part of our history.
The Electoral College was also tied to how political power was structured at the time, including the compromises around slavery.
So we don't like to talk about those things.
Hello.
That
never happened, right?
Right, but 1787 was a long time ago.
And things have evolved.
Parker,
that's even older than me.
No.
Well, I thought you
signed the
Declaration of Independence.
I did.
He was
there.
John Hancock.
He actually wrote over my big signature.
But things have changed.
The country has evolved.
And I think it's time to look at a different system than what's currently in place.
We are the only democratic nation in the world.
that still uses the electoral college system of electing a president.
Well, and two of our elections in the 21st century, the person who got elected did not win the popular vote.
That's George W. Bush in 2000 and Trump in 2016.
They did not win the popular vote.
And according to Pew Research, another poll, take it how you want.
But from 2024, this poll came out.
63% of Americans said they would replace the electoral college with a national popular vote.
35% opposed the change.
We got the majority of people behind this.
It doesn't make sense.
We heard non-stop after, you know, that Hillary won the popular vote, but Donald Trump is still president, and it doesn't.
I understand all the past rationales.
If I lived in a less populated state, I would
probably feel different.
But there's, that's how it goes.
I understand you live in a less populated state.
Your vote still counts.
It just doesn't, it doesn't count proportionally more than my vote just because I live in a populated state.
That's not fair either.
If this many people voted for one person,
And it's simple.
It goes back to grade school.
You get enough votes, you win.
That's how it's supposed to be.
So the fact that we're giving preferential treatment now to people who live in less populated states just to be fair, well, what about all the people who voted for the person
Who got the most votes?
What's fair about that?
And I know we're not, I know it was saying, oh, it's not fair.
It sounds very childish, but that's, you know what I mean?
The weight of a vote should be the same no matter where you vote.
It's never been a perfect system.
It's always been a negotiated system.
I mean, the electoral college is a negotiated system.
A popular vote system would be a negotiated system.
It doesn't necessarily make it wrong.
And if a candidate is winning the popular vote, that to me feels more like the will of the people than
the
electoral college, which is being thrust upon us from some 1787 law.
We have several texts rolling in this morning.
Tom says, yes, to the national vote issue.
It makes sense as.
long as the states have two senators, he's all for the idea.
Thank you so much for the text.
Frank from Poignette says, listening on WMDX, get rid of Citizens United, yes on popular vote and rank choice voting.
And see rank choice voting I think is a bigger discussion and I'm a rank choice voting proponent.
And that's for discussion for another day.
But Len also says yes seems the electoral college system is another form of a weasel clause.
If you want to chime in on the conversation,
conversation this morning, 1-855-752-4842, 1-855-75 civic.
The question we're asking you this time around, after the last few presidential elections, is it time to adopt the popular vote as the final word?
So we'd
love
to hear from you this morning.
Yes,
I
think this is actually a simple question.
I feel like the answer is simpler than a lot of people make it.
Here's the thing that I think why there's consternation, especially from the Republicans.
They don't win the popular vote very often.
And if you go to a popular vote system, that means they are going to lose more elections.
Maybe it would make them rethink some of their policies.
Sure.
Perhaps that's the price you pay when you realize the
most of the people are not behind you.
Now, there are some, go ahead and finish your thoughts.
No, no, I was just gonna say, I mean, if you move to the straight popular vote, it's going to definitely change the math for Republican candidates.
And that's actually looking at numbers over time.
That's not just opinion, by the way.
In recent election, Democrats have consistently won the national popular vote, even in races that they lost, as you rightly pointed out, Brian, right?
2016, 2000 stand out for sure.
So if you flip the system to purely that popular vote, you're gonna talk about, you're talking about a system where turnout is big population centers like New York City, California, maybe even in Milwaukee.
Major metro areas are gonna carry more weight and that's going to obviously favor the Democrats.
I think a popular vote system though also engages more voters because of the election.
I
was just going to say that.
Yeah.
And I think the electoral vote system alienates people because you know that if you're in a very rural area and maybe you're a blip in your rural area, right, voting for a candidate that not everybody in your area supports, it's probably not gonna matter.
And I think that dissuades a lot of people from actually getting to the polls and casting a vote.
Yeah, I agree.
I think that's gonna get everybody's vote then feels a lot more...
A lot weightier.
It's like this is this is actually going to work and I go back to it some of the time it texted about two senators from each state Again, I don't know if this is if that's the best way for representation either.
I would love to live in a state with very small population But I also know look at the size of Wisconsin and the population of Wisconsin now granted There's a lot of rural areas where there's a smaller population, but Wisconsin has a lot of people Then you go to Wyoming.
Wyoming doesn't have that many people
Do we need the same amount of representation from a piece of land, basically that's not populated, as opposed to a bigger piece of land or a smaller piece of land that has a lot more people in it?
I think two is the minimum.
Sure.
You know, yes, it would it would grow the size of the Congress and it would make make bipartisanship probably I don't even know if it would make it more difficult probably not it just be more people screaming and yelling a lot more strongly worded letters being fired off, but I don't know if
Everything can't always be equal and shouldn't always be equal when it comes to representation.
Now when it
comes to rights and things like
that.
If you're using rank choice voting, it would be more equal.
It would be more fair.
Just want to point that out.
Okay, fair enough.
But at the same time, I agree with you because I think in a state like Wisconsin too,
Not all areas are created equal, right?
You have some hubs that are very progressive, very blue voting, very liberal.
You have other hubs of this state that are very right-leaning voters.
It's very conservative.
So the politics doesn't play from one corner of the state to the other.
And I think people are entitled to having fair representation based on their values and their views.
And then, of course, I understand that there's also populism.
that goes into it, I grew up in South Dakota, right?
I mean, there's nobody there.
There's nobody there.
There's absolutely nobody there.
And you have one senator representing the entire state.
And what's interesting about that is you have two polar opposite things happening in South Dakota.
It's bookended by more liberal cities on both ends where all your population is.
Everything else in the middle is very small, rural, or farmland.
So it's not a fair representation when you look at it like that.
Look, there's a lot of there's a lot of issues going on here I do like I'm gonna and they're all they're all worth talking about and they're all worth considering I I am a fan of the popular vote.
I think that's just Then there's no debate Well, there's still be debate about all the votes not being counted and may live on all the usual garbage that goes along with somebody who loses But it's much easier and it also you know what it's also going to stop
the predictions coming out two minutes after the polls close on the East Coast.
People declaring winners when people are still voting in most of the country because we can see, oh, we're at this number.
And maybe the whiteboard will have to change because now instead of just we're not just doing states, we're doing actual numbers.
And it might take another day or two to get the results.
And you know what?
That's OK.
The
president doesn't get sworn in the day after the election.
So we got time.
If it takes a week, let's just, who cares?
That's another thing about the European system on my soapbox for a minute that I appreciate.
Why do we have
such
a long transition of power?
Literally in other countries, they use the popular vote, they have a dedicated day for voting, and within a week, that person is then in office.
But how are you going to give out all your pardons and do untold damage in your last two months in office?
Yeah, I don't know.
Apparently.
Apparently, I'm thinking too far ahead.
I didn't think far
enough.
Stop thinking.
Did you think far enough to file your taxes?
Because it is tax day.
And David Casey, the Secretary of the Department of Revenue here in Wisconsin, joins us.
After this, it's daybreak.
I'm Brian Noonan.
I'm Jamie Martinson.
It is 648 on the Civic Media Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
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Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
Now back to more of Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
Thank you so much for joining us this morning.
We always appreciate it.
Hopefully you were having a great Wednesday.
on the Civic Media Network.
My name is Jamie Martenson.
And good morning.
I'm Brian Noonan.
Well, the saying goes that the only things certain in life are death and taxes.
And if you're listening today, you escaped the first.
But since today is April 15th, you cannot escape the second.
Yes, today is tax day.
to answer some questions about your taxes we're joined by david casey secretary of the wisconsin department of revenue mister casey has nearly thirty years of professional experience working with state tax agencies to help improve taxpayer service and compliance he was appointed by he was appointed secretary of uh... the wisconsin department of revenue by governor evers in april twenty four he had been the deputy secretary of the d o r from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty two
David, thank you for being here this morning.
We appreciate your time and your expertise.
So the big question that I'm hearing from a lot of people, and I just read a piece about it in Forbes, they're saying hundreds of thousands of taxpayers are seeing delays tied to how the IRS is handling refunds this year.
So what's causing these new delays?
Well, first of all, thank you for having me today.
An exciting day for the Department of Revenue.
We're on track this year.
We've processed about 2.4 million tax returns so far this year, and we are expecting another half million or so to come in today alone to hit our target of about 3.1 million or more.
So we're on schedule.
We haven't had any delays on our end.
The IRS, I do work on an IRS committee and work with them.
They did have cuts of about 25% of their staff.
So we've heard some delays, but it's not impacting our state tax processing as of yet.
It's
good news.
So what is the difference this year in what the IRS is doing versus previous years that are creating some of these delays for others, not in Wisconsin, as you so rightly point out?
Well, some of theirs is just around their staff.
So with their staff cuts, they've had some issues with their customer service availability to help people.
Their call wait times are about two hours.
I'll tell you the Wisconsin Department of Revenue Average wait time is about two minutes right now.
So when we're staffed properly and with the right technology, we can provide the results that taxpayers expect.
right now the irs is just struggling with some of the cuts they've had and some of the delays in the technology improvements
now what's uh... what is the biggest mistake david that you see wisconsin taxpayers making when it comes to paying their state income tax
well first of all that it the biggest mistake and it's not really a mistake is finally by paper right now we have ninety seven percent of our taxpayers are filing electronically that means three percent or will file by paper
about a day and a half to process our electronic tax forms.
If it's by paper, it can take up to a week or two to process.
So while a mistake, it just delays it.
It
delays getting your refund.
We are talking with David Casey.
He is the secretary of Wisconsin's Department of Revenue.
So when we're talking about some of these mistakes and some of these delays and some people who are counting on these refunds each and every year, what kind of impacts do we see when the IRS at the federal level is experiencing some of these setbacks?
Well, sometimes it can be a delay in some of the data getting to us, but right now we're not seeing that.
One of the things to avoid making mistakes, I would suggest, is that you have all your documentation put together and use the electronic filing methods that are available.
So for documentation, you should have all your social security numbers and information.
You should have your income documents, your W-2s, your 1099s,
your deduction credit record, so any credits that you're taking, and make sure that you have your bank information so you're adding number in your account.
If you have all of that, everything should go through smoothly.
It's when some of that's not provided in a timely manner, that causes delays, both on the federal side and on the state side.
David, I know on the federal level, I can go to IRS.gov and I can track my refund.
Is there a resource like that for my Wisconsin refund?
Absolutely.
If you go to revenue.wi.gov, right on our front page is a refund lookup and refund check.
So you can just hit the link there and I believe you'll type in what the refund amount you're expecting and some other identifying information and you can check on the status.
Typically though, like I said, if you're filing electronically, our refunds are getting out in about a day and a half.
I'll also note that right now our refunds are averaging just over $1,000.
So people are starting
to see the effect of the tax cut that Governor Evers signed into law last year.
David, I know that there's a lot of young filers maybe filing for the first time.
What advice would you have for them this year if they haven't already filed because time seems to be a ticking today?
You know, it's well you mentioned that we put a big emphasis and reaching out to young filers.
We went on to UW campuses and interviewed and really did a big social media push to get new filers to file electronically.
One of the areas that we offer this year, we've actually offered it for five years as our whiz tax.
So you can file online at the Department of Revenue's website for free, it's secure, it's fast.
Last year, we teamed that with the direct file with the IRS, but because of some of the cuts they made this year, the IRS dropped that ability for taxpayers to file online, but we kept ours.
So a new taxpayer, they can do it on their phone.
They can go onto their phone and use WISTAX to file their tax return.
Perfect.
And before we let you go, David Casey is our guest.
He's the secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Revenue.
There are people who today were like,
I owe both the state.
I owe the feds.
I don't have the money.
What do I do?
Maybe I'll just skip filing and file later when I have some money.
Not a good move, correct?
That is not a good move.
File.
File your return.
Tell us what you owe.
We can arrange payment agreements on both the state of Wisconsin can and the IRS can.
So it's important that you file.
If you don't file, there are associated penalties with filing late and then you accrue penalties and interest.
So
Do the right step, file as soon as you can, get that done today, and then we can work out payment arrangements if you need after that.
I was going to say the state, the state's okay if you file because you'll come and find your money.
It's just once we don't file, that's when we get in trouble, right?
Exactly.
And it's a lot more painful if you don't file than if you file and we just arrange for a payment agreement.
We're pretty good with that.
Well, happy tax day, David.
I know this is a big, big day for you at the Department of Revenue.
David Casey is Secretary for the Wisconsin Department of Revenue.
Thanks for your time and your expertise today, David.
We appreciate it.
Thank you.
My pleasure.
All right.
It is tax day.
Get your filing in.
You have till midnight.
So get it, get it done, even if you owe money and you don't have it.
You'll be fine.
For the next two segments of the Civic Media Spotlight, we stay right here with Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
There is a lawsuit facing Wisconsin GOP members saying that lawmakers should not be able to, as they have done in the past, use public money to pay for private attorneys.
The GOP members faced with this suit are using public funds to pay private attorneys to argue the case.
Wisconsin wakes up here.
Back to Daybreak
with Brian and Jamie.
Good morning and thank you so much for joining us today on the Civic Media Network.
Some sunshine for a change in downtown Madison.
Hopefully you're seeing some sunshine where you're at too as we try to dry things out from all of this week's past weather.
We'll get into more of that throughout the morning.
Give you a little update on what we can expect and then of course we'll talk to our own Stu Waddles who is the reporter from WAUK to tell us the latest in the Milwaukee area.
That's coming up at 8 30 this morning but in
In the meantime, Brian, we've got some headlines that we have to cover this morning.
Yep, we have some things happening overseas.
As usual right now, Pete Hexeth and General Dan Cain are giving a briefing, the first one since
We've instituted our blockade on Iran's ports.
So we'll keep an eye on that.
But in other war news, Pakistan's army chief met Wednesday in Tehran with Iran's foreign minister.
In the latest diplomatic move to ease tensions in the Middle East and arrange a second round of negotiations between the United States and Iran after almost seven weeks of war.
I will mention this morning, too, before I get into this next headline, there is, as you mentioned, that press briefing.
Pete Higseth this morning, warning Iran, we're watching you.
It's almost like there's the Rockwell song from the 1980s.
Somebody's watching you.
At any rate, the US Treasury Secretary Scott Besent warned yesterday that the US is preparing to ramp up economic pain on Iran by levying secondary sanctions on financial institutions that do business with the Middle Eastern nation.
Besent called the measure the financial equivalent of a bombing campaign.
Doesn't feel like the rhetoric is is tampering down in any sort of
way.
No, it doesn't sound cease fiery at all.
It sounds like continual fiery The admit these Israeli military killed four Lebanese rescue workers and wounded six others in three consecutive targeted strikes Yesterday paramedic groups said a stark illustration of the human cost of the Israeli military campaign against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon a day after the two countries held historic talks in Washington, so I
I'm confused.
Maybe I'm not a diplomat, so I'll probably be sent over to negotiate because that seems to be the criteria for our diplomats.
But it doesn't seem like when you're having talks, you should be bombing still.
It's less of an incentive in my world to negotiate in good faith.
And
come to
the
table?
Yeah.
To make any concessions, to reach a compromise.
Hey, maybe stop bombing me for a second so I can think.
And I think this is the point of the morning where we rightfully point out that this war started during the first round of talks.
While those
talks
were ongoing and they were trying to come to some sort of negotiation, the President of the United States decided to attack Iran.
So we have not been at... Well, we still
have to...
We still have to figure out what Netanyahu said
to
Trump to get him to acquiesce to this, to get him to decide.
Because all reports say that Netanyahu had gone to our last three presidents other than Trump in the first term and tried to get the same thing to happen and all those presidents said no.
So that would be Republican presidents and Democratic presidents.
All said no.
What did he say?
What did he have?
So we don't know why Trump gave in
but
that's that's the key to all of this.
No, it is the key to all of this and we're never probably going to get those answers and and again I understand the state of what what Iran's government is like what their regime is and how they've acted and treated their own their own
citizens for years and the threat that they have they have imposed in certain parts of our history.
There was no imminent threat though in this particular case and at the same time
The United States did not act in good faith by being at the negotiating table and then going into the United States and bombing this country.
And I'm never going to hold favor towards Iran based on how they've operated over the years, but
We did not also operate in good faith in that moment no matter what net yahoo said to the president of the United States
Jump in because I'm watching what whiskey Pete is saying he has gone back to lambasting the press and it is the press's fault because the press
seems like they don't know whose side they on and they are being unpatriotic and then he brought in Jesus again and saying that only, you know, the press only celebrates the downfall and the problems with Trump.
Whereas Jesus went into the synagogue and took the gnarled hand of the beggar and I don't, I don't understand
it.
I don't understand why we have to
tie in religion to
the war.
We are not, well, we're not supposed to be a theocracy.
Right.
We are not supposed to have it, but this is part of the white nationalist, white Christian nationalist movement.
And we have somebody, and we're going to get, just hang on, we'll talk more about Whiskey Pete once we get into, as you need to know.
It's a wake up call in more ways than one.
Time for some sh**, you need to know.
Yeah, let's, that's all right.
Yeah, let's jump into it.
Yes, let's go, because
we're already
talking about Pete Higgs
at.
Yeah.
So House Democrats have filed articles of impeachment against
our secretary of defense and pocket square wearing flag man and jesus lover pete hexeth and i don't i don't say that is a slam on people who love jesus but when you invoke jesus's name right it in a way to justify war and killing and bombing a civilization out of existence that i have a problem i mean that's me
this isn't a religious war
It's not supposed to be.
So here's the story.
Axios was the first to report this, but House Democrats unveiled articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth yesterday, making serious allegations about his handling not only of the war in Iran, but his leadership more broadly.
The resolution was led by Representative Yasmin Ansari of Arizona.
It lists six impeachment articles, among them unauthorized war against Iran and reckless endangerment of
U.S.
service members, violations of the law of armed conflict and targeting of civilians, negligence and reckless handling of sensitive military information, obstruction of congressional oversight, abuse of power, and politicalization of the armed forces, conduct bringing disrepute upon the U.S.
and its armed forces.
Now, everybody knows, okay, it's probably not gonna go too far this year, since the Republicans still have a majority.
But the Democratic sponsors could, if things change after the midterms and the swearing in of a new Congress,
pick these up.
Again, it was a seven-page impeachment resolution.
It claims Hexeth engaged in high crimes and misdemeanors, the constitutional basis for impeachment.
It says he has, quote, demonstrated a willful disregard for the Constitution, abused the powers of his office, and acted in a manner grossly incompatible with the rule of law.
That's serious business right there.
The resolution also accuses Hexeth of failing to prevent the use of military force, quote, in a manner inconsistent with the law of armed conflict.
pointing to civilian casualties, including the February 28th bombing of a girl school in Iran that killed 168 people.
This
isn't just about removing him from office.
The Democrats are asking for accountability.
And that's literally what they're asking for.
And it's about putting serious allegations on the record and forcing everybody to acknowledge
what this country actually needs and what our priorities are and what the priorities of the Department of Defense have been and I I mean, you're right It's rightfully not gonna go anywhere right now.
We know it's but but
it's on the table.
Yes,
and November is not that it seems like November is really far away November is not that far away and if the trends Continue and this is just prognostication if the trends continue
It looks like the Democrats will take over the majority.
Yes, and Then then all bets are off for these guys and I don't here and I want to go back for a minute if I can show I can wait
our
show Whatever we want.
No, I when I brought up the Jesus loving thing is a criticism of Pete Hegseth.
I want to clarify I am
infuriated by people, hypocrites who wrapped themselves
in
Jesus as a cover for their ill deeds.
Pete Hegseth has committed personal things that are well documented, horrible things.
He, by all reports, not a great guy.
We also know he has used his office to talk about no quarter, which is a war crime.
He doesn't give off
a godly or religious vibe.
Everything he says is antithetical to the teachings of Christianity.
And so when somebody like that wraps, it's like someone who wraps themselves in the flag.
Someone who wraps themselves in religion is despicable and they're a con man and they're trying, they're playing on people's faith and they're praying on the most vulnerable among us, both financially, mentally,
spiritually, they pray upon them and use God as a bludgeon to try to get their point across.
And that is why I use that as a criticism, Pete Hegseth.
It has nothing to do with people who are spiritual, people who are religious, people who follow either Christianity or Catholicism or Judaism or Muslim.
I don't care.
That's your personal belief.
But don't you dare try to hide behind a religion to get your point across and justify your horrific acts.
He's now saying that he prays that Iran makes the best decision.
This is not a place for religion.
This is a place for facts and strategy and diplomacy.
And when you look at what is being alleged in this impeachment document, right, I'm going to repeat it again.
unauthorized military action, civilian casualties, mishandling of sensitive information, obstructing oversight.
Those aren't small claims, right?
These go right to the core of how military power is used, or in this case, abused.
And that is what the Democrats are trying to point out.
And those are the things that this administration is going to eventually have to
subcom to.
They're going to have to be accountable and they're going to have to show that they stood up and they agreed with these things that they are now implementing that have affected all of us and other countries in some sort of way.
That's what's going to have to happen and that's what's being laid out in this documentation.
Yeah, it's it's rough and the politicalization of the military we see it when he tried to silence Mark Kelly Yeah, and everybody else who spoke out and just basically read the military code of ethics and said you don't have to follow an unlawful order and he accuses them of being unpatriotic and not supporting the president and All of this it did all it all makes sense.
What's surprising is it took this long but
It's now out there.
We'll keep you posted as things go on from there.
Dick is on the line, but we're going to finish headlines, but he's saying that Hexeth is guilty of war crimes, and so is Netanyahu.
I can't disagree with you, Dick, and we appreciate the call.
Sorry we can't get to it right now, but we do appreciate it.
We have some other stuff we need to know, Jamie.
We do.
In case you're one of those people who's been paying attention to ticket prices, because sometimes you like to not talk about politics and go do something fun, well,
realized that this is happening because a jury found Live Nation and Ticketmaster operated as a monopoly in its dominance of the live events and ticketing industry, validating complaints that the industry giant was basically stifling competition and driving up fees for fans.
That's because they have been.
The verdict was reached following a lengthy trial in New York federal court that included testimony from top executives in the music and entertainment industries.
Juris started deliberating on Friday.
Now you're not going to see ticket prices or fees tacked on to your bills.
drop anytime soon, because there's going to be a second trial to decide what remedies are going to be warranted in this particular case.
So in the meantime, go buy your tickets to all the summer concerts, and you're still going to have to pay all of the fees tacked on, unfortunately.
All right, we're going to let a little steam off with Swiper to stay.
That's coming up next.
I'm Brian Noonan.
This is Daybreak.
It's 719.
I'm Jamie Martinson.
It's the Civic Media Network.
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.
Let's break out of the bubble and see what's happening out there in pop culture.
It's Swiper Stay on Daybreak.
722 right now.
Thank you for joining us this morning.
It is time for Swiper's Day.
This is where we leave the politics behind for a mere seven minutes.
And we dive into pop culture with our senior producer, Frank.
How are you today?
I'm doing great, much better today.
But for the moment, there's an asterisk there, Jamie.
There may be ones like politics story, but don't worry.
It's also involves celebrities.
All right, we like that.
Easy peasy.
It'll be fine.
Anyway, this is Swiper.
I'm gonna read some vague pop culture headlines to Brian and Jamie.
They're gonna have to decide whether to stay and hear more or swipe on to the next one.
Producer Parker gets to be the tiebreaker if it comes down to that.
Here we go to story number one.
Ice cream founders are fighting back.
Oh, I would like to hear that.
I'm gonna stay.
Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, is officially fighting back.
The Free Ben & Jerry's campaign is transforming Free Cone Day into Free The Cone Day.
Ben & Jerry's has now become owned by the Magnum Corporation, who is in the process of destroying the heart and the soul of Ben & Jerry's.
They're trying to neuter the social mission.
Whoa neuter the social Wow mission trying to destroy the heart and soul I felt it was better coming from his his own words and off the statement That's pretty powerful for somebody because usually when you sell your company and Ben and Jerry's is huge, right?
We all love it, right?
Yeah It's awesome Usually when you sell that you go out you retire
You lay low you sit on the beach and whatever happens happens, right?
Sure
Not these not Ben
Cohen.
Nope
So he's calling on the public to raise their voice in support of their mission in hopes that someone who cares about social issues like the co-founders do will buy the company.
Cohen and Greenfield sold the company to Unilever in 2000 with Greenfield leaving the company in 2025 after accusing Magnum of preventing them from posting on social media in support of Palestinian refugees, the First Amendment rights of student protesters, and a ceasefire in Gaza.
I just
hope I mean that was a cornerstone of Ben and Jerry's with social activism and all of that and it's Good if it's I'm maybe I'll go buy a pint today and just use that as an excuse.
Why are you eating a pint of Ben and Jerry's?
I'm standing up for liberty
freeing the cone freeing the cone free cone day I just hope it goes better than free Brittany.
That's all I'm saying
I think
everything goes better than
free Brittany.
Do we
have
any favorite?
Ben and Jerry's flavors here.
Fish food.
Fish food.
Fish food's a popular one.
Brian.
I'm trying to think.
Boy, there's not many I don't like.
I like the cookie dough one.
I like the half and half one they brought out there where you get half cookie dough, half fudge brownie.
I like that one.
Cherry Garcia, I like the line.
I'm always a sucker for it.
I said
choose one.
There's not, listen, ice cream.
You cannot, I worked at Ben and Jerry's for a very short time when we first moved to California.
And it was a great job, except for my waistline.
Because there's always, oh, I had to make the...
Cookie sandwiches,
we'll talk about it
another
time.
I'm always a sucker for anything with swirly, gooey caramel in it,
so that's- Feel free to comment or text out there what your favorite Ben and Jerry's flavor is, we'd love to hear it.
All right, moving on
to
story number two.
All right.
I know we briefly touched on this story yesterday, but we do have an update, I promise.
Guy Fieri has been called out yet again.
Oh, all right, yeah, I'm all through this blasting Guy Fieri.
So he talked about this yesterday.
If you don't know, he was seen dapping up the tape brothers at a UFC event and the internet got pissed off.
The tape brothers are under criminal investigation in multiple countries, including the UK, where they face charges of rape and human trafficking as part of a total of 21 alleged offenses.
So everybody's up in arms at Guy Fieri.
Well, yeah, they're disgusting humans.
They're awful
people, right?
Allegedly.
Allegedly.
Here's the thing.
Guy Fieri walked.
All of it back saying, I feel awful.
I had no idea who these people were.
Well,
the Tate
Brothers lawyer has come out and reached out to TMZ to say that Guy Fieri knew exactly who the brothers
are.
Of course he did.
And was all too happy to catch up with them.
Until, and I'm quote, this is a quote, until the woke mob came after
him.
Oh, you mean, ugh, never
mind.
People who don't like alleged rapists and child and human traffickers.
Let's just remember that Epstein was alleged too, folks.
There's that.
And our president has convictions for sexual assault.
Also alleged.
Not the conviction one.
There's some convictions.
There's been some convictions, yes.
There's some
convictions.
Alright, guy theory Forget it.
Go but as I said yesterday go back to Flavortown
story three Former reality star gets big endorsement in Los Angeles mayoral race.
Oh, I know this story.
I can't even believe this is a thing Stay just because it's so stupid and it shouldn't be a thing
now that Jamie is so worked up about it I feel like I should
say I
know I'm gonna swipe Parker
I want something a little less being the bonnet.
I'm gonna go swipe.
That's fair.
Thank you.
Thank you
for saving me for myself.
Rockstar actress hospitalized while on tour with ACDC.
They still tour?
It's only one of
a
long.
I'll
stay.
Taylor Momsen, former actress and lead singer of the band, The Pretty Reckless, has been hospitalized for a spider bite in Mexico.
Wow.
The
Pretty Reckless
vocalist.
Is it code for something correct?
Nope, that is a
venomous spider.
She took to Instagram and shared a photo of her leg where the bite occurred and it's pretty gnarly.
Go look it up.
She said hospital today, show tomorrow.
Poisonous spiders are no bueno.
Holy
but the
show must go on.
See you tomorrow Mexico City.
If you don't she an actress in
Do you ever see the movie how the Grinch stole Christmas?
Yeah with Jim Carrey.
Yeah,
she's Cindy Lou who?
Really?
She is now on tour with AC DC Wow, right
on okay.
She was also in gossip girl one of Brian's favorite shows and partridge.
Okay, that's it for swipers say today
Thank you, Frank.
Always a pleasure.
Boy, the more you know, I guess.
It's fascinating.
Well, we've got all kinds of things we're going to talk to Mace Michaels next about the weather here on Daybreak on the Civic Media Network.
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