We've talked the whole night through.
Good morning.
Good morning to you.
This is where Wisconsin wakes up.
It's Daybreak with Brian Noonan and Jamie Martinson.
Here are your hosts, Brian and Jamie.
Good morning.
Thank you so much for joining us today at a six minutes after six.
My name is Jamie Martinson.
And good morning, I'm Brian Noon and glad to have you with us.
If at any point in the show you want to get involved, we'd love to have you 855-75 Civic.
855-7524842.
The sun is going to be out today.
Thank goodness the rain is ceasing so everybody can dry out a little bit, at least for a couple days before things start up again.
But
few clouds, few sprinkles in Madison right now.
So hopefully, hopefully you're we're gonna get rid of those later today.
Cooler temperatures though, not nearly as warm as it's been over the last couple days.
That's all right.
I'll take it.
Like we said yesterday, as long as the rain's gone.
Everybody's here.
Frank is here.
Our senior producer.
Our technical producer Parker is here, as far as I can tell.
There he is!
Hi!
He told me before the show started that he actually got some sleep last night, so now he's all energetic.
It was
the first time in days that I hadn't started waking up.
on and off for like every half hour at like 12.30.
Oh, that's always the
worst.
Yeah.
Why?
What
was waking you up?
I
think what it
is.
The
demons.
The demons.
Those demons,
man.
Voices.
I think what
it is is I get so anxious that I'm going to miss my alarm before work sometimes that I'm just like...
That's why you set multiple.
Oh, I have five, I think.
I have my alarms on my phone, but I also have... I still wake up
at the last one.
I have my alarms on my phone, so I can just, you know, hit those as they incrementally go off, but then I have one across the room that I actually have to get up and go turn off because that's the only thing that some days gets you literally out of bed.
True.
Apart from you're
not seasoned.
I'm not seasoned, no.
You still have...
The glow.
Are you saying he's bland?
No,
he's
tasteless, boring.
Those are, that's mean.
Frank, it's only 6-0-8.
Like a boiled chicken breast.
That's what
Parker
gets.
No, he's, you
know.
Whoa, whoa.
Or he needs some salt.
Maybe a little garlic.
He's still
worried.
He's got to make
sure he gets up for his alarm.
Well, don't you worry about getting up on time?
No.
Well, his commute is shorter.
His commute is short.
His commute is very short.
Well, that's true, but still.
In my
radio career so far, knock on wood, I've overslept my alarm twice.
That's pretty good.
That's really good.
I'm trying to think.
I had a hard time getting out of, some days I have a hard time getting out of bed, but I'm awake.
Yeah.
Right?
And so, like, I know the final minute that I absolutely can't push it anymore in order to be up, ready, and out the door.
But I'm usually awake.
I think I've only overslept.
I think twice, probably in the last 25, 30 years.
But yeah, I'm usually awake.
It's just a matter of how lazy I want to be that particular
day.
All right, no more talking about sleep because I
want to go back to bed.
Because you're going to get sleepy.
I got yelled at yesterday by somebody on the watching the show within the show because I yawned when we were in break.
I stopped yawning.
We get up early.
First of all, we're not on the air.
All right, Jamie, you had to go shopping yesterday?
I did.
Not for me, though.
Not for me, for my husband.
Now, my husband is an anti-shopper.
He is literally a, these are the clothes that I want.
Please go pick me out the new version.
And that's how he likes to shop.
Can I just really fast before we get into this?
Because I know where this is going.
And this is the trope that angers me the most.
The trope that
Men.
can't shop for themselves, men don't care.
No, no, no, he can.
No, no, no, he can.
He doesn't prefer to.
He doesn't like to.
I have no, I have no.
Can he
go online?
Doesn't he?
He is my husband is a bigger guy.
And so he is very particular about how things fit, how where he wears them.
And so and I get it.
It's as particular.
So I can't really say much to him.
However, I always know generally what I'm looking
for what my size is, and I tend to stick to the same store so it makes it a little bit easier.
And ladies, if you've ever shopped, you know that women's clothes, numbers are arbitrary.
It doesn't matter.
They're that
way in guys clothes, too.
Right.
And that's what I'm finding out.
And so he's a bigger guy.
He's got a particular bigger guy store that he likes to go to.
And we went in about an hour and a half before close on a Tuesday night, right?
So there's nobody else there, which is you're starting out.
strong if that's how it is.
That's his preferred.
Right.
And so we walk in and this very nice woman who works at the store looks at us and she goes, what can I help you with?
And my husband was looking for like a couple of sports coats and things for some bigger meetings he's got coming up.
And she looked at me and she goes, she goes, you've been here before.
I said, oh, we're in your system.
She goes, you go take a seat.
She goes, wife.
And she goes, I'm going to bring you a bottle of water.
Don't you worry.
I got this.
I was like, I don't know what's happening here, but I like it.
And so she goes, she goes, let me give you, she goes, I'm going to have you fill out this.
She gives my husband a tablet.
She hasn't put in all of his like information.
She gives him a pair of compression shorts.
He goes into the.
the dressing room, and these compression shorts, after he's got him on, I hear the tablet say, stand directly looking into the mirror.
I'm like, what is happening?
Turns out you put these shorts on, it's all AI.
So it gives him every measurement from his neck down.
It was incredible because then she brought him clothes, spot on fit, length, neck, like everything, inseam, it was spot on.
We were in the store for 45 minutes.
My husband came out with a bunch of
he was super happy with.
He's gonna look so amazing.
It was incredible.
I got to sit there and play on my phone thanks to the compression shorts and AI folks.
I'm telling you, it was incredible.
This is insane.
I don't know how I feel about this.
And we were just in there literally about...
Who had the compression shorts on before your husband?
Nobody, they make you take your compression shorts with you.
So now I have a weird bag of compression shorts.
But that's besides the point.
But it was actually incredible.
because I could hear the tablet saying, now turn to your left, turn to your right.
No, please angle a little bit more this way, as he's got these compression shorts on.
They're doing all of the measurements, and then she was like, oh, you're this, this, this, and this, and she brought him the colors.
He liked everything fit perfectly.
No adjustments, no sleeved alterations, nothing.
Everything looked amazing on him.
And he's like, I really like this.
Was this for everyday clothes or like dress clothes?
This was dress clothes, but they can
do every day clothes as far as like your chest width so you kind of know what size to get in t-shirts or your button downs or anything like that but this was mostly for dress clothes but I mean even his pants the pants were a little big we had to adjust down one size but other than that they had the compression shorts had everything just perfectly matched to him it was incredible he loved it he appreciated it so much
Frank you're a grown man, you know, don't you know what size you are?
For the most part I can go look
yeah,
but you can go look for dress
you
don't
know you don't know what
size
dress clothes I don't what size suit coat you wear
now Oh, do you know that?
Yes, I do
of course I do you go to things right that's true
You are a celebrity.
Yes.
No, I'm you are wanted.
I've just asked you to show up.
No, I always I've always known what size stuff I wear.
I hate being bothered.
This is intriguing.
This compression short AI thing.
But it's just one more step toward our robot overlords taking over.
But I find that I find very, very interesting.
It was fascinating.
I don't want anybody talking to me when I'm shopping.
Right.
I don't want coming up and oh like that would have driven me crazy.
If I happen to walk
in somewhere
with my wife and that salesperson said I would have turned around and left.
Why?
Because I know what I'm doing.
Yeah.
I know what I want.
I know what I'm looking for.
I've been
dressing myself for a long time.
I do it very well.
But I don't do it very well here
because it's
six in the morning.
But I do it.
I do it very well elsewhere.
My husband is very much jeans, t-shirts, polos, and buttoned out with khakis when he has to get dressed.
Going into the suit, going into the sports coats, whole different level for him.
And it's funny because he went...
My husband is also a very plain human being.
He doesn't like a lot of pattern.
And so I was shocked when he got a blue sports coat on and was like, I don't know, do you have a striped shirt to go under this?
I was like, oh my God, who is this person?
And then he put on another sports coat and it was this plaid sports coat.
It had blues and burgundies and I loved it.
And he put it on and I was like, there's no way we're walking out of this.
But it looked sensational on him.
I was like, there's no way we're walking out of this.
Pretty soon he's looking in the mirror.
He's got these really dark wash jeans on with it.
And he goes, I don't know.
I kind of like this.
What do you think?
I'm like, oh my God, who is this human?
I have no idea who this is.
And the woman was fantastic because she, after she had him all signed up, she literally just said to him, you just tell me what colors you need.
push the little buzzer that will ring my front desk and I'll bring you what you need.
And that's what she did.
She was incredible.
She brought me water.
I played on a phone.
He would come out and say to me, what do you think?
And it was, oh, easiest shopping trip we've ever had for those types of clothes for my husband.
Scott is in Madison.
He's listening on WMDX.
He says, I believe you're referencing here as a 3D fit model.
It's when an industry fits its clothes to set 3D model, then they take your measurements and poof.
They know what clothes they make to fit your shape.
No AI.
Okay,
but she mentioned she mentioned AI.
I'm just going off of what she said.
But it was it was it was absolutely if you're somebody who hates to shop, right?
If you're absolutely
somebody who hates to shop or has an aversion to it like my husband does, this was, he just felt good about himself.
You know, because he wasn't just trying on clothes and going, oh, this looks stupid.
And he was actually able to get a couple of cuts that he would have never tried because they were a little bit more tapered or fitted.
And that is not something he would have just gravitated towards.
But with his measurements there and with the help of the very lovely saleswoman, he was able to actually try these things on and felt good.
in them, so I'm always for that.
And it's a success.
Yeah.
Success, success.
You
know what it is?
It's being also a bigger guy.
There's nothing worse than going in the shop and them being like, well, this, this should be your size.
And it's like three sizes too small.
And
they're like, oh, I thought that would have fit.
Yeah.
You're just trying on clothes that goes on it.
You've really had that happen.
And you're just like, oh, absolutely.
Now, see, I'm probably as big as any of you guys, if not bigger.
Parker's the only small one of the group.
He's the only I'm petite thin one of the guys.
I'm tired about the guys.
The petite.
Yes, Frank and I
are both both economy-sized men.
I'm compact.
I
have to tell you though like for for men shopping I
Shopping is not fun in any way, shape, or form.
Numbers are arbitrary.
Brands don't matter.
I mean, it doesn't really matter.
Women's clothes are at a whole new level.
And Brian and Frank, you both have lovely wives.
I'm sure you've heard the tales of, whoa, when you have to go out and find an outfit, or you have to look for something, because it's literally impossible.
I mean, there is, at one point, I was like, why do I need jeans that I can do high kicks in?
Because they had so much stretch, and that was what the label showed.
In one of the particular stores I went to is this woman doing a high kick in her jeans.
I'm never doing that.
What does that mean?
You never know what you might have to kung fu.
What's up, buddy?
What do you mean?
Plus,
ninjas might come after you.
You might have to go crazy.
I'm only 5'1", so I come out of the dressing room and everything looks like a penguin, even if it's made for short people.
I walk like a penguin because I'm walking on everything.
So I loathe shopping.
I absolutely loathe shopping.
That's why
once you know your size, I just go online, man.
Bang, bang, bang.
I
wish it works like that for women's clothes.
That's assuming you're saying the same thing.
Alright listen there's a
lot of helpless guys out there, but We've we're gonna try not to be helpless.
We have a lot to talk about today, and you can always jump in But right now we're gonna take quick break
Fairly solid and better than expected.
It's Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
622 right now.
Thank you for joining us this morning.
Happy Wednesday.
Roger and Stevens point over on our text line this morning, Brian, reminding us that Willie Nelson turns 93 years old today.
Wow.
Light one up for Willie.
93.
And we know
he'll be doing plenty of that because it's Willie Nelson.
probably snoop coming over for a little snoop and Seth Rogen dropping by the house.
It'll be fun.
But happy birthday, Willie Nelson.
I slept out for three days on concrete to get Willie Nelson tickets when I was in college.
How was the show?
It's a fantastic fifth throw center.
I know he was at
Breeze Stevens here in Madison a couple of years ago.
Maybe two, three years ago now.
Might have been a bit longer than that.
Sometimes my timeline is a little blurred, but we knew several people.
We were not able to go to that show.
We had to be out of town for a family commitment, but we had several.
people in our orbit that went to that show and said it was just absolutely phenomenal.
That he can still perform really, really well.
He
doesn't move around as much, usually at that point they brought out a stool and sat him down and he did a lot
of singing.
Right, but they said it was still just a great show and he still sounds fantastic.
So, and again, that was a few years ago now.
But, 93
for Willie Nelson.
Thanks Roger.
All right, listen, here's the question and it may sound conspiratorial, but there's some people wondering, some people are saying, do you think Caroline Levitt has been fired by Trump?
Well, here's why, because there may be some shake ups.
Caroline Levitt the other day was talking to reporters.
And, you know, she's going on maternity leave.
She was...
ready to burst the other day at the White House Correspondents Center.
She's due very soon.
So she said, somebody asked her a question, one of the reporters, she said that she is not part of the president's political team anymore.
Yes.
Interesting way to phrase it, isn't it?
It is because she is
Boy, she sure seems like she's on his political team.
In fact, she
was
supposed to be on maternity leave on Monday, and he was supposed to start taking over his press briefings or somebody
from the
administration.
He or Rubio?
But she
was back at the podium Monday after the White House Correspondent's dinner, updating the press on what happened at that dinner and the administration's reaction.
So I was actually a little surprised to see her based on last
week's information.
Yeah, I thought she was gone, too.
Right.
So...
What do we
know?
He couldn't he couldn't do the press conference or the press briefing because the king was here.
This is
true
This
is
so and maybe rubio was somewhere else.
I that's gonna be It's gonna be
interesting.
I mean circus
is that what this is was she actually fired or is this the president deciding that he and his cabinet would be better Speakers for the administration than somebody else
Well, this is we talked about this last week when the story broke and you were vacationing.
But there's there's a number of things that I posited that he might think he's smarter, which he does.
Maybe he's not happy with how she's doing because he did say he claimed he was joking.
But a couple of weeks ago, he said she was doing a terrible job.
It was he was being facetious, I believe.
But let's we'll let you judge.
This is what this what it sounded like when Caroline Levitt said she wasn't really part of the team anymore.
That's a question that's political by nature.
As you know, I'm not part of the president's political team anymore.
I do sit here at the White House as a government employee.
Look, the president has a lot on his plate, a lot on his schedule.
He did host a telephone call the prior to the election the night before, but he's made his position on the results of this election clear.
Wow.
Hmm.
Interesting.
Or do you think, do you think maybe because Caroline's nothing if not a
She's a savvy operator.
Yes.
Do you think she may be just distancing herself on purpose?
Because when he lost last time, she didn't stick around.
She went and worked for Elise Stefanik.
Who wants to go out to midterms are coming out, right?
Yes.
The president's polling is plummeting.
every day at this particular moment in time.
And I know
there's a long way to midterms, but as of right now, the polling is not great for the president right now.
She's starting to not only get more pushback from more legacy media, but also right wing media in that press room.
And at some point, if you're 28 years old and you have a rising career in front of you, which I'm going to assume Caroline Levitt thinks she does, and she probably does.
Do you cut your losses and be like, nope, I am not anchoring myself to this anymore.
I am not going to answer these questions anymore.
To me, if you're a rising star,
for the Republican Party, you cut your losses at this point and you
move on.
Well, this is the perfect time, right?
Because what's a maternity leave?
Like 12 weeks, probably, let's say government, maybe a little more.
But now 12 weeks, that's do the math.
That's no, not two months, Parker.
It's three months.
He's holding up two fingers.
I can do the math.
I understand.
It's three months.
That puts us due to like August and August.
Yeah, she just disappears.
She just fades away.
And right before the midterms, the
secretary because Caroline wants to spend more time with her child.
Right.
And she's also
got a young toddler at home, too.
So it
does make total sense.
And her husband is much older than her, so somebody has to be around to, you know, take care of the kids and things.
But I think it's going to be interesting.
And let's be realistic.
If this was any other party, if this was any other president, people in the administration would be making the exact same...
decisions.
It doesn't have anything to do with who the president is.
People who see themselves having a strong political future cut ties really quickly because politics is very brutal in that respect.
Yeah, you don't want to get dragged down.
Lynn's listening in Golden Valley, she says, I'm sure Trump is like many GOP and does not believe in maternity leave.
You think he got mad that she got, that she, she's having the baby and disabled?
I can't believe it.
She was unfaithful to me.
She was with her husband and now she has to leave me.
Nobody leaves me.
So it'll be interesting to see if she just disappears.
I don't know if she does leave, whether she was whatever, if she's not there when her maternity leave should end.
I was wondering if he'd be able to find somebody as vicious as her, but I don't think there'll be any problem finding somebody as vicious as her.
Whether you agree with her
or not, she's good at her job.
She's good at her job as a mouthpiece.
When we come back, we're going to do a little fact checking because we want to know, do you still think the attack at the Correspondents' Dinner was staged?
So we must look at fact versus fiction here on Daybreak on the Civic Media Network.
All facts, no fiction.
It's Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
635 right now.
Thank you for joining us this morning.
If you're listening in Wausau and WXCO or in Eau Claire on 93.5 the tap or in Hayward on WBZH, we're glad that you decided to join us today.
My name is Jamie Martinson.
Good morning.
I'm Brian Noonan.
You want to weigh in?
Do you think the Correspondents' Dinner was staged the attack there on Saturday night?
8-5-5-7-5 Civic.
8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.
We talked about this on Monday.
It's hard not to start buying in to conspiracies.
It's very difficult.
And I'll be honest, I never used to be a guy who did.
I thought, you know, I would hear people going back to talking about the Kennedy assassination and how old man everything and then you go and have you ever been to the book depository?
I have not.
Jamie,
I have not.
You stand in the window and granted it's right next to the window that Harvey Oswald was in.
And you look down and you go, well, it doesn't make sense that the car
came off the main road and boy I'm not a great shot but I could hit somebody from here it just
so
you start you start buying in but then you realize so many things have to be part of a conspiracy right and that's what's swirling around the White House Correspondents Dinner we because of what has been going on with this administration it is very hard to believe anything and then you start looking at
little pieces in those little disparate pieces that can be explained away factually.
A lot of people hang on that Caroline Levitt comment that shots will be fired.
Well, she was talking about, you know, Donald Trump was going to rip into the press.
That was, and so when she's mentioned, Oh, there will be shots fired tonight.
Everybody bled or settled down.
She was talking about his speech.
Right.
Right.
She wasn't foreshadowing a lone gunman running through security.
But to your point, once that misinformation takes hold, it's impossible to fully undo, especially in...
especially with this administration, who's never going to give us the full scope of the story, because that's not what they do, especially with social media that takes hold and people start believing everything they see.
Even when the facts come out, some people are gonna stick to the version that they saw and believed first.
And when that happens, to your point, you erode trust, you erode trust in media, you erode your trust in the government, you erode trust in all of our institutions,
And when you start breaking down that type of trust, it's going to start affecting everything.
And we've seen how that starts to play out over the course of time with these conspiracy theories.
And I said on Monday, at this point, it looks to me.
like there was valid reason to be concerned about the shooter based on what we know, based on what his family said.
And I'm always willing to change my mind, though, as I see more evidence come out to whether or not this was actually staged or not.
And I know that right now that seems like there's a lot of coincidences.
But at the same time, this was a guy who had been radicalized by what he'd seen online.
Right,
but now are you seeing pictures that he was not even a...
an African-American guy.
That's the next, that's the next conspiracy that's coming out.
I saw those pictures just as I go, stop.
But it becomes harder to believe anything when even the president, we all saw him trip as he was being taken off by the Secret Service.
And then
we
didn't see him.
We saw you.
And then we did see him in
the wings looking back out which all of these things now I I'm not discounting what you said about the shooter it seemed like seemed like this guy was troubled he had he had definitely changed his MO on social media from video games to this you know much more political much more anti administration stuff it's I understand why people more and more can believe these things even though
facts come out and they're like well it can't really be yeah it can't really there's too many people that have to be involved now granted you know then we talked about salad guy yesterday salad guy you know he but they're not going to let everybody in if it's right if it's a staged event everybody's not coming in right event so it just we have to we have to be careful and I like I said I have
I've fallen into a couple of these just because I'm so
over
what's been going on in the flood of garbage that comes our way every day from this group, that I don't put it past them to do anything, which is a very sad state to be in.
I don't put it past them.
I'm not saying it is, but I'm not putting it past them to try.
I still go back to medical people.
We all saw it in Butler.
We all heard a shot.
We all know that somebody did die.
mm-hmm
the shooter and an audience member we know that but we also know that doctors say that there's no way a bullet right could take off a piece of an ear and grow back right Scott has been hanging on in in Madison let's talk to Scott 85575 civic good morning Scott we've got dick on the line sorry but dick's on the line talking about talking to dick hi dick sorry
Good morning.
I'm in the same camp as you as far as I mean look the guy spews nothing but garbage 90% of the time So what's a normal person supposed to read and now the story comes out?
I've told you before that I renamed the FBI the fascist bureau of ineptitude That now they think it was friendly fire that hit this secret service agent the FBI can't say for sure Isn't
that
I had heard that as well, that they don't know in the scuffle.
There were reports earlier.
At first, the suspect
had gotten off
one round.
Yep, they're saying that he possibly never even got a round off this morning on MS.
No, on Morning Joe.
So, you know, if the FBI, and that doesn't surprise me under this guy, that they don't know what's going on.
It's hard to it's hard to take anything they say at face value dick.
Thanks for the call Appreciate it.
We did have Scott, but he texted
it.
Yeah, he said I think the attack was real, but I believe the response was staged I also believe that they purposely made the event less safe Well, the it's it's funny that the ballroom thing was their first response mm-hmm first thing after this happened again
coincidences, but so many coincidences fed to us all the time.
Right.
Everything's a coincidence.
So can we get, can we ever, is it going to take a different administration or is this level of distrust now so ingrained in us that we are never going back to a time when we could believe that the administration and administration, any administration is telling us the truth.
I think in where we're at in modern society, right?
And I don't want to lay everything on social media, but it certainly doesn't help.
And it certainly contributes to the conspiracy theories and to people who get tied into these things because they join these groups and they read all of these things that other people who also believe the same thing they do get tied into all of this.
And instead of getting
outside opinions instead of looking to other sources people tend to where we're at right now people tend to insulate themselves into
their orbit of of people who believe and think like they do.
But that's always been the way
we always we always
search for opinions that validate our own and it was I think it's you know social media to your point yes we can blame social media we can blame the rise of a 24-hour news cycle where nothing nothing has time to breathe and actually be investigated because it's churn and burn on stories non-stop so we always have to have new fodder for the furnace.
But I feel like what is happening
right now is in people think that when they see those headlines come across that have been AI generated, that those are real headlines, right?
And it just continues to feed into what people are already thinking or think they believe or may believe or whatever it is.
And I think it's it's a dangerous circle that we've put ourselves in, especially with a government who who
put so much distrust in the media, who spews so much distrust of our processes, our norms that we're so used to, who also spews so much nonsense about the Constitution and constantly tries to override it.
So if you're somebody who's already susceptible to wanting to insulate yourself with your groups or being sucked in by the AI-generated news, you're going to start believing
everything that this administration spews and and not be able to separate the fact from the fiction of it all.
I don't think you have to be susceptible though.
This is true.
I think
when when you because if you're smart enough to see you're being gaslit constantly when don't believe your eyes believe what we tell you and you're you're an intelligent human being who has made decisions your whole life you're like no this is not true this is not true and it's so if
if the majority of things that they're telling you are true and you are seeing that they are clearly not.
This is not AI generated.
This is not fake news.
This is I'm seeing it with my own eyes.
I'm hearing it from other news sources outside this country.
Things are all these things are being backed up.
We have facts.
That doesn't make me susceptible.
It makes me angry.
And then it makes me start doubt doubting everything.
It doesn't mean that I'm
you know, a sheep that's gullible and just was looking for something to validate me.
It means that I've had so much come at me.
Think of it and this is not to minimize abuse.
But if your abuser keeps telling you the same thing over and over and over, you'll start to believe that.
It doesn't mean you're susceptible to these messages.
It's that these things have been shoved in your face and beaten into you for so long, you cannot help but look for other ties that put all this together.
And I think a lot of people in where we're at right now because of the media circus that we essentially end up in most days, I think a lot of people have tuned out what is considered the more legacy media, right?
And they're starting to, they're trying to find their own sources of good information because there is so much distrust in the media right now.
And so they go out and they find these independent journalists or they find these independent sources.
Let me be clear.
There are some very good ones out there.
There are some very good ones out there.
There's
also some crackpots.
That's the point.
That's the point.
There really are.
And if you start believing the crackpots more than you start believing the ones doing the real work, the real investigation, then we're compounding upon compounding and then you're just insulating yourself even more.
And I think it's a really vicious, dangerous circle that we've
put ourselves into.
And I can't say that it's all on the administration.
They've just fed in to this mindset that a lot of people have.
And they have been really good.
That's the one thing.
That's the one thing that bothers me the most about this administration, because they have been really good about taking the insecurities of America and certain subsects of the country and using that to fuel their messaging.
And it bothers me so much because it is a psychological game that they continue to play.
with people in this country.
And they have been able to bring people into the fold who would have never believed this stuff in a bazillion years, but they have been able to play into people so well.
It's been a game of psychology for the last 10 years.
It's always when it comes down to find someone to blame who cannot fight back.
And you you use them as the straw man, they're going to be the ones who are constantly on you.
John jumped in on socials, he said the Trump regime has caused the speculation, everything they don't like is
fake and not real.
This is their own fault not to mention literally everything out of the White House is a lie.
So that is my default.
Yeah, see, and I don't I don't blame John no for feeling that way.
And so that's why.
Yes, it's probably this whole thing was just a tragic episode that it wasn't it there wasn't some deep dark conspiracy.
but there's a lot of things that make you question it and they have used going back to your social media and I know we got to get out of here but they have mastered the use of social media everything from insulting groups to diplomacy is done on social media in that silo where only his people are listening all right we've got to keep moving uh hey decimal point on a speed limit sign you gots to be kidding me maybe not it's daybreak on the civic media network
local news, community stories, and the conversations that matter most.
Now, more Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
Good morning.
Thank you so much for listening to the Civic Media Network.
It's 6.52 right now.
My name is Jamie Martenson.
And good morning.
I'm Brian Noonan.
Glad you're here.
I will say right up front, I, and this is not a flex.
I'm not bragging.
I drive fast.
I drive, I believe 10 miles over the speed limit is about right.
I don't speed through school zones and I don't speed through residential neighborhoods.
But if I'm on anywhere else, trust me, I'm going fast.
And if you can't hang, then stay out of the left lane.
That's all I'm gonna say.
But Jamie, you saw this story.
This is a great story.
It is, and I don't know how I would react if I was on this road.
It would certainly get your attention, wouldn't it?
If you saw it, we're talking about Wisconsin road signs because...
a particular road has added a decimal point to its speed limit sign.
And this is in a hope that this unusual sign will actually give drivers second thoughts about going fast on this stretch of road.
The out of gamey county recycling and solid waste facility in Appleton, that's a mouthful this morning, announced earlier this week that the speed limit inside the facility would now be 17.3
three miles per hour, Brian.
I don't have any of those numbers on my speedometer.
I don't have decimals.
I don't.
I don't.
They have a 17.
I know that much.
I'm not going 17.
I barely go 17.
Just between the 15 and
the 20.
I think that's where you would be safest.
But I find this fascinating because the facility provides recycling and landfill disposal services.
And they say that they've decided to post the speed limit of 17.3 miles per hour because it makes drivers pause and it makes them look twice according to the facility.
run into things because they're not paying attention to the road anymore.
That's not really just say, hold on, then they back up and
I love this idea, actually.
The facility also says that people who travel through the site each day, including haulers, contractors, and nearby residents, are essentially needing to slow down.
And the goal here is to keep everybody safe, because small changes are a big reminder to stay aware and look out for one another.
Now, posting such a specific speed limit is pretty unusual.
It's actually not unheard of, believe it or not.
There was
a speed limit side read
of 8.2 miles per hour at a shopping center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
And that, of course, has created a lot of confusion on social media for years.
Another unusual speed limit sign was spotted at the Opry Mills Mall in Nashville, Tennessee.
There, drivers are limited to going 24 miles per hour, not the typical 25 miles per hour.
I can't believe that there are low-speed people.
completely disregard the parking lot speed limits.
Of course.
I didn't even know there were technical speed lights in a parking lot.
I just figured you'd be a lunatic to try to drive fast, which people are.
They come zip it.
You're trying to back out and some guy comes flying down at like 25, 30 miles an hour.
It's like, dude, there's a million cars backing out of here.
There's people draped over their carts like their spines have been removed.
They're moving at a snail's pace.
There's people walking.
There's older people with canes and scooters and all sorts of
things happening.
Slow down.
Well, again, I will slow down in those 100% in those instances, mostly because I know if I hit somebody, I'm going to be more angry at them for walking in front of my car.
So I need to just but I mean, it gets your attention 17.3.
If you're even if you're even paying attention to the speed limit signs, right, which, you know,
You know, but here's the thing, like, we go back to people walking through parking lots.
How often now, and I'm guilty of this, how often do you see people trying to walk to their car and not only are they draped upon carts or, you know, trying to run after screaming kids because we've all been there, but then they also have their phones because, you know, you're trying to make phone calls, you're trying to text, you're trying to get a hold of some, like, I'm guilty of it.
I'm totally guilty of it.
I, this is why I don't like to leave the house because yesterday I went to Costco and then I had to go.
to Walmart because I spend, I got banked like that.
Why is it both day?
Same
day.
Wow.
Same day.
Well one, Costco had the cheaper gas, but then I had to run in and get some things.
And the parking lot is a zoo and people aren't paying attention.
And honest to God, I don't know what happens to people when they go to the store.
They lose all control of their bodies.
And if you're draped over the cart, perhaps you should just do DoorDash.
If you can't walk without.
completely laying on the cart, and I'm not talking about just older people.
I'm talking about younger
people,
because I'm open-heavy.
So I could say that young people do it, and they're in the parking lot just wandering around.
No one has walks with a sense of purpose.
No.
Everybody meanders.
No,
I do not meander.
Oh,
well
good.
I hate me.
I hate meandering.
I do
not meander.
And if I'm going in somewhere like Costco or Target or Walmart, whatever, name your mart store, I am going in to get the stuff that I need.
And my purpose is to get in and get out as fast as I possibly can because I don't want to be in there.
I just
don't want to be in there.
You and I need like special shopping hours then because I'm the same way.
I know what I need.
I have a list.
See it right here.
I got a list.
And maybe here's the thing.
something might catch my eye and that's okay.
I don't just stop in the middle of the aisle and then park my car across it and stand there slack jawed drooling because I've just seen some economy sized bottle of pasta sauce.
No, I'm keep it moving, flow of traffic.
And oh my God, people just.
willy-nilly.
So that's where we need some speed limits.
We need a fast lane in Costco or Sam's or wherever you go to keep
people moving.
We also need traffic lanes in those stores because that would help out immensely if we had traffic lanes because how often is there obviously some sort of flow of traffic but then you have the one person who comes up going completely the opposite and sets
off the
entire aisle.
Nobody could get through that because you're going the wrong
direction.
listen if you really need to compare the ingredients or the fat content in yogurt between three different kinds that's all online you
can do it before you get to the store
Parker
This is your future.
Just cranky yelling about people in the store who can't walk.
And by the way, get in and out
fast.
Take that lesson with you.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Come and go.
All right.
Listen, we're not going to be Andrea.
We are going to jet into the next hour with headlines.
Wisconsin wakes up here.
Back to Daybreak with Brian and JB.
Thank you so much for joining us on this Wednesday morning.
It is six minutes after seven now.
If you are listening in Wisconsin Rapids on WFHR or right here in Madison on WMDX or in Appleton and Oshkosh on WISS, we are glad that you decided to join us today.
A little cloudy right now in parts of the state.
We're supposed to see sunshine by this afternoon, though, so that's the good news.
And any rain that we saw was literally came in very, very light sprinkles this morning, Brian, because we don't need more rain.
in good portions of the state.
Now, I know in the Northwoods, they would love for a little bit of rain, but in other portions of the state, we just want to dry out some.
So we're going to get that over the next few days with some cooler temperatures as well.
By the way, my name is Jamie Martinson.
And I'm Brian Noonan.
If you want to jump in and join us, 8-5-5-7-5-CIVIC-8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.
Don't forget you can watch, see how, how do we look during, during the show?
Picture-esque.
That's how we look.
You can do that on YouTube or our brand new Facebook page, Daybreak with Brian and Jamie, which is also the handle for our Facebook and Instagram social pages.
So do that or just, oh.
Give us a follow.
Right.
Parker put this up.
Podcasts, Spotify.
Maybe
you're listening to Taylor Swift and you're like, I have had so much Taylor Swift.
I need some
informative and engaging talk.
And you take a break from Taylor and you listen to Daybreak with Brian and Jamie on Spotify.
We're so fancy now.
Look at all these cool gadgets we have.
Fancy, fancy.
It's
amazing.
It's amazing, so take advantage of it before we feel neglected.
All right, time to shift the focus to the Persian Gulf.
We are at war, but this is, I will say this, it is kind of disheartening that now
AP, the Associated
Press, which
is a very great news organization, straight ahead facts, a lot of if there's opinion columns, they're clearly labeled that this is opinion.
AP has stopped now doing live updates on the war.
Yeah.
So because it, which is to me, a sign that
we're gonna be here for a while, nothing is changing, we're gonna report on it, they're still reporting on it,
but they're
not doing headlines.
So we have some headlines though.
President Trump has warned that Iran quote
better get smart soon.
He posts a mocked up image of himself on truce social holding a machine gun wearing shades and referring to a non nuclear deal.
mediators in Pakistan expect to receive a revised proposal from Iran in the next few days.
Yes, he said no more miss it said no more Mr. Nice guy.
There was a flag burning or Tehran was burning in the background.
There was a American flag there he's holding and looks like an m 16 or an AR 15.
and in his sunglasses.
Is that what calming the rhetoric looks like?
It is.
Well, that rhetoric doesn't count for other people.
Gotcha.
For foreigners.
Gotcha.
I just want to make sure we're on the same page here this morning.
Bring down the temperature, Jamie, unless you're a burning city or a...
complete civilization that we're going to obliterate.
Then you got to crank it up because you can't burn down a civilization at low temperatures.
In other headlines this morning, the president also said yesterday that King Charles agrees with him that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon, adding during yesterday's state dinner at the White House that the U.S.
is doing very well.
The conflict has become a source of transatlantic tension, as we've reported.
I have not heard from the king to back this up, but the king was not sure about taking some shots yesterday.
No, he was
not.
No.
Other headlines from across the globe oil prices are rising again today amid ongoing concerns over the Strait of Hormuz.
The UAE is quitting oil cartel OPEC, a move that could allow them to pump more oil, yet prices remain above $110 a barrel.
And finally, despite a declared ceasefire, Israeli strikes killed at least eight people throughout southern Lebanon yesterday, according to state media and also national authorities.
Wow.
I really don't see an end.
Can you?
We're in our eighth week.
But that was always the fear.
Nothing
seems to be changing.
That was always the fear even from certain Republicans when these attacks started, right?
Yes.
Is that nobody wanted to get into a long, drawn-out war, which this portion of the globe has a history of doing.
I mean, when you look at the past conflicts that have taken place in the Middle East, nobody gets out of those quickly.
No.
And that was always the fear that that's what this was going to be.
And those we got into with a plan and we still were not able to get out of them quickly.
This was not some gut, you know, could have been indigestion, could have been like in Christmas Carol, just a bad piece of meat that made him believe that Iran was going to attack us, despite all evidence to the contrary.
All right, well, enough of that because the war will rage on and we'll keep talking about it, but we also have some other stuff you need to know.
It's a wake-up call in more ways than one.
Time for some sh** you need to know.
Well, we mentioned King Charles.
He was here with Queen Camilla and he addressed a joint meeting of Congress yesterday marking the second time a British monarch has done so.
He was welcomed with an extended standing ovation and much of his speech focused on the kinship and history between the U.S.
and the U.K.
At the end of his remarks, lawmakers gave him another long standing ovation.
Charles began his address to Congress by referencing Sunday shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, Saturday shooting, rather, saying such violent acts, quote, will never succeed.
He expressed solidarity with the U.S.
We stand united in our commitment to uphold democracy, to protect all of all our people from harm, and to salute the courage of those who daily risk their lives in service of our countries.
In his opening remarks, he did remember his late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, who was the last monarch to address
the U.S.
Congress.
He used a portion of his speech to praise NATO in the role the defense alliance has played in protecting their citizens and interests.
The mention of Ukraine and the support it needed to defend itself from Russia, Russia's unprovoked aggression, were another part of the king's message to President Trump, who has stopped most military aid to Kiev since returning to the White House in January.
The king took a moment to quote Trump in his speech, reminding the Congress that it was the US leader himself who praised the friendship between the two nations just months before vilifying the UK and its government for not providing significant
military assistance for the war.
He concluded by reminding lawmakers that the United States influence carries weight and meaning.
By the way, it was 1991, the last time a monarch addressed Congress.
I had to look that up because I wasn't sure my timeline there.
It
was the same day that she and the first President Bush planted a tree out on the White House grounds and
I loved, I saw footage of her addressing Congress yesterday at Queen Elizabeth.
She made a joke because at the press conference for the tree, the microphones were so high, she was very small of
frame.
She's probably the same height as you, Jamie.
So they couldn't see her so when
she
got to Congress the microphones had been lowered and she said I hope you can see me now
Yeah,
unlike yesterday.
Yeah, no, you know I think what you want about Queen Elizabeth But she always had the right thing to say at the right time and she always did it with a little bit of grace and yesterday when we talked about King Charles and Queen Camilla being in the US I said I didn't really understand the entire process because it was obviously some sort of
of Diplomacy Act.
And I think essentially after listening to him address Congress yesterday, King Charles, that is, I think that's exactly what this was.
It was simply a diplomacy mission from the king, mostly knowing how much this president reveres the royal family, right?
He has a lot of admiration.
And I think King Charles- Does he
know because he treats them with such disrespect when you saw him yesterday?
But right as Queen Camilla was shaking hands with the cabinet, he literally pushed her aside to shake his own cabinet's hand.
But at the same time, he wants to be acknowledged by kings and queens, and he wants that sort of acknowledgement.
And I think in this particular case, especially with the tensions right now between the US and the UK, I think that King Charles was probably the right diplomat to handle that.
Because I can't see this president being OK with the prime minister coming in.
from England coming into the White House yesterday.
Things.
Yeah, you're
right.
No, Charles said it in a way.
He made his points.
And I thought they were very good.
I thought he represented people who do not agree with this administration.
He represented us pretty well.
Yep.
Said the things that needed to be said in a very diplomatic and regal way, still placating Trump just enough that maybe he'd listen, right, or he wouldn't at least blow up, right, you know,
So I thought it worked out very well.
It did.
It did.
And so, you know, if we're going with the olive branch of diplomacy, then I think King Charles and Camilla were probably the right people to do that in this particular moment in time.
In other headlines, we're going to bring it right back here to Wisconsin because the Federal Bureau of Investigation yesterday said that it is aware of social media posts made by a Wisconsin activist who launched a promotion to offer free beer for his craft brewery.
the day that Donald Trump dies.
Carolyn Clancy, who is a spokeswoman for the FBI Milwaukee office, said in a statement about recent posts made by Kirk Bangstead.
He's the owner of the Minakwa Brewing Company.
She said, hateful rhetoric and speech are despicable.
She also went on to say that threats of violence or terrorism will be investigated by the FBI and the public is encouraged to report any threats of violence.
Now, the state Democratic Party on Sunday actually denounced
Bankstad's post promoting the idea of assassinating the president in the wake of the shooting at that DC event that he was in attendance of.
We're talking about the White House Correspondents' Dinner.
Bankstad, who, as we mentioned, owns the Minakwa Brewing Company.
He's also the founder of a political action committee that supports progressive politics.
He said Saturday in a post from his Brewing Company's Facebook account, we're not going to give the post any more exposure.
The post was made after a gunman opened fire at the dinner.
U.S.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the gunman appeared to have targeted Trump and officials in the administration who were attending that event.
Now, Bankstead did not directly respond to the Milwaukee Journal sent those requests for comment about the Democratic Party's criticism, but did make a separate Facebook post on Sunday where he hit back at the Democrats who criticized the post and
actually stood by his previous comments by linking to merchandise for sale that promotes Trump's death.
What I'm gonna say is this has not died down.
He has double tripled and even quadrupled down as far as his views about the president and his posts that went out after the shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.
Yeah, he really needs to look in the mirror and do a little self-evaluation.
This isn't edgy.
This isn't satire.
You can't normalize political violence.
not right now, ever, but especially not right now with the
rhetoric.
I said this yesterday.
I'll say it again.
I have no good feelings toward this administration.
That does not mean that in any way, shape, or form, I want somebody to be murdered.
We could, he could be removed from office.
by election.
He could be removed from office from impeachment.
That would be fine with me if he stands trial for any of the alleged crimes that he's alleged again to have committed.
That would be fine with me.
But to say to promote this violence is irresponsible because in this day and age that we saw how how crazy people can be.
The president
talked against the Pope and the Pope's brother was getting death threats.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, who I have no good feelings for either.
Trump called her a traitor.
She received death threats.
Stop.
This is, things are too much on a razor's edge right now.
We can't, you can't be doing this.
It doesn't matter if it's Trump or anybody else.
It's just not right.
It's not acceptable.
It's not acceptable.
We've got a lot more to get to, but we need to take a breath, Jamie.
We need to have a little swipe or stay.
Now, did you read all the headlines
this morning?
I did not.
I stayed away purposely.
That will make everybody happy.
It's daybreak on the Civic Media Network.
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 put our politics aside and any chatter of it for just a few minutes.
And we dive more into the pop culture headlines with our senior producer, Frank.
Couldn't remember what it was called.
I was like, I don't know.
I said politics.
Now I want to go back there.
Peas,
anything.
No more
politics.
Swiper's
Day.
Frank, what do you
got for us today?
We got some good stuff.
Hopefully Jamie didn't read any of this.
I purposely stayed
away from
everything
yesterday.
I did not.
If it had any sort of entertainment in the headline, I was like, nope, scrolling past.
I honestly was very good about it yesterday.
All right.
All right, we'll see.
So swipe or say I'm going to read some of these pop culture headlines.
Jamie and Brian will have to decide whether to say.
and hear more of it or swipe on to the next one in the event of a tie.
Producer Parker gets to be the tiebreaker.
All right, I did text this in our group chat yesterday.
We do have a Diana Roussini and Mike Freeman update.
I think we need, this one feels like there's not much left that we can squeeze out of this.
So this feels like we're getting closer to closure.
You think that?
Well, I'm hoping that.
You said this three times now, and something crazy happens every single week.
I feel like
there's only one other direction this can go.
I have no idea what this new update is, but I'm going to stay.
So you're staying here?
I'm swiping.
I've had enough.
Frank You know what to play
we're staying All right, we have two updates one small one big Mike Frable's wife was seen in photograph still wearing her wedding ring.
Okay,
good news for Mike.
Yes
Here's the fun update Uh-huh is people have looked into Diana Rossini's Spotify history
Oh, my.
They found an interesting playlist.
Oh, no.
It's called Turning the Page.
Oh, wow.
Is this just recently?
This I'm getting to it.
All right.
That she shared with one user named Mike on December 19th of 2022, which just so happens to coincide with a four game.
Titans losing streak when Mike Frable was the head coach of the Titans.
So she shared this playlist with him.
Wow.
So the big.
I don't want to know any of the excitement.
I thought you
had some some or some music drop.
So it's all over the place.
And this is my only thing where I'm like, really?
Did she share this with Mike Frable?
OK, so we have some things that I think would go with Mike Frable.
There's Renegade by Styx.
There's Dance the Night Away by Van Halen.
Welcome to the jungle, Guns and Roses.
Last resort, Papa Roach.
But then there's Cuff It and Break My Soul by Beyonce from the Renaissance album.
Big Energy by Lotto.
House Party by Sam Hunt.
Wow.
Raise Your Glass by Pink.
It's Red Hot Chili Peppers.
It's all over the place.
But who else could she have shared this with?
Now, knowing what we know now.
Her future son, Mike, who was named.
He was one at the time.
Well.
Wow.
Maybe maybe those
were songs don't turn his concept now.
No, I was
so exit.
Yeah, songs they played during his alleged conception.
I
don't do you guys totally have made Spotify playlist for friends and I never
I do I I share mine I have my own and I'll share stuff off of mine I haven't made them specifically for anybody do you think that he like I know she stepped down from her role and I know in the football world things are a lot different but do you think this sort of do you think this is gonna die down or is this gonna carry into the season with the Patriots
if the Patriots win it's not gonna matter okay
On
the football side, none of this matters.
And I think that's very important to point out.
On the football side, nobody cares.
If you're looking at it as a football fan, my team went to the Super Bowl.
I don't care.
He's got to figure this out.
And the reports coming from the inside the building is he hasn't really been the same and everybody's worried that psychologically he's not well.
So everybody
on the football side of things, just wants him to get back to being Mike Vrable.
Sure.
Can we move on from this story?
I am bored with it.
Let's go
to story number two.
This is like the greatest gift we've ever gotten in terms of real world.
The gift that keeps
on giving.
Pass.
We have a white lotus casting update.
Hmm.
Didn't we do a white lotus?
Did we find out that the Helena Bonaparte
was out the other day?
So now we have a follow up update.
All right.
I think that we have to stay.
It's a quick one.
So the other day, we talked like Brian said, we talked about HBC leaving the new season of the White Lotus because her character quote didn't work.
Well, it's only been a few days and now Laura Dern has been cast to replace her.
Really?
It's important to note Dern is not playing the same character as Helena Bottom Carter was.
That role has been completely scrapped and the new one is being crafted mid production.
Wow, that's a sign of a disaster.
Now, Laura Dern, this is an HBO show.
Laura Dern has been on many HBO series.
So people are saying this is probably a safe pick from the production standpoint.
They said, get Laura in here.
She's worked with us before.
She's worked with Mike White before.
If we put her on, we can work her character as we shoot.
Yeah.
So there's your update.
Interesting.
All right,
good.
All right.
Number three.
Kid Rock and Pete Huggseth have teamed up again.
Oh, man.
Stay.
Stay.
Parker, we need like ball with the ball, just like on standby.
Everyone's favorite duo.
We've teamed up again this time for advertising purposes.
Batman and Robin.
Truly.
Pete Hegseth and your tax dollars have provided kid rock with the ride in the gunner seat of an Apache helicopter.
But don't worry, a camera crew was on site.
Oh.
to presumably film an ad for Kid Rock's upcoming Freedom 250 tour.
And a Pentagon spokesperson made sure to reach out and say that Kid Rock has pledged a thousand free tickets to service members at each show.
Wow.
I thought I forgot about that story.
I thought you were going to talk about Kid Rock actually.
Speaking about the Strait of Hormuz to Pentagon Staffords yesterday.
I would know two Kid Rock stories that are completely ridiculous.
Now are these the same helicopters that were outside his house?
Correct.
And that's swiperset.
Wow.
Thanks Frank.
You're welcome.
Spent so much time with this fray bowl nonsense.
What time would Kid Rock?
Now back to more of Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
Good morning.
Thank you so much for joining us today on the Civic Media Network.
It is 735 right now.
My name is Jamie Martinson.
And I'm Brian Noonan.
Do you think that students should be politically active or pulled in?
to political statements, 855-757-855-752-4842.
Be nice to Parker.
He's always a little frazzled.
He does a great job back there in the boy aquarium, which is now, and it's very lonely in the boy aquarium, because only one boy is in the aquarium.
So
make a lonely goldfish swimming around his little bowl.
Feeling all lost.
But the good thing is, as a goldfish, he can't remember what happened
during the
last break.
So he just moves on.
What?
Exactly.
The reason we're asking about kids being pulled into politics is because there's a lot of kids in Madison who are not going to school on Friday.
Right.
And not because it's Friday and they're going to go out and have a three day weekend.
Well, they will.
But not not because of any sort of sloth.
More than half the teachers said they would miss work on Friday to demonstrate in support of immigrants.
Madison Teachers, Inc.
The union that represent teachers and staff said 70% of members said they are going to participate in a day without immigrants.
The event is part of National May Day Strong Day of Action.
So Milwaukee's not having school.
on Friday.
Madison's not having school on Friday.
There's districts all across the state that are making different arrangements and all across the country where kids are not going to be going to school.
Yeah.
Now
as a kid, you got to love it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, here's the thing, too.
This is all part of a bigger movement.
It's not going to just involve teachers.
It's going to be everything from union workers to, as you mentioned... Are you
taking the day off Friday
to protest?
I am not.
I am not.
But it's going to be union workers are taking the days off.
There's going to be teachers across the country that are going to be taking the day off.
We're going to be out protesting.
It essentially calls for everything from immigration reform to worker protections, even economic blackouts.
There are even places across the country that are saying, don't spend any money if you don't have to, don't shop, don't do anything, because we really need to take a stand against some of this.
And you mentioned some of the other cities that we're going to be having some of these teacher protests, but Chicago also on that list, LA, and a lot of school districts, interestingly enough, in North Carolina.
also stepping up some of the bigger notable ones.
That's unusual because of North Carolina's history and their voting history, I guess, and their history history to see that.
It's one of those, now I'm going to work on Friday because immigrants are hardworking people.
And
so being the grandson of immigrants, I will come to work.
You're welcome, everybody.
You're welcome.
And they're
like, oh, we were hoping.
We were hoping
you were feeling politically conscious and took
the day off.
Nope.
What I think is interesting about this, though, is that members of Madison's Teachers Inc.
put out a statement saying that this is happening not because teachers actually want the day off, but because they're standing up for their students, essentially is what this is.
Students are experiencing a lot of anxiety.
It's leading to absences and also trouble constant.
training at school and the the union says that quote they're afraid that ICE agents will come for them their parents or their friends a heavy burden no child should have to bear students cannot learn while grappling with adult fears of family separation before they have even mastered their ABCs.
Well, and we haven't seen, we haven't seen that as much in Madison, but we have talked about different school districts, especially up toward Eau Claire
and North
there where people were being taken right from school or the kids would come out of school and their and people they knew were gone.
So this is by no means just a frivolous day and a reason, a silly reason to take the day off.
The only other time that Madison had closed was for four days in 2011 and that was when staff was participating in protests about Governor Walker's Act 10 legislation which did away with unions as you remember.
It's one of the many things that Act 10 did.
Right.
But this is important and I'm going to, you know, it's going to be interesting to see how it plays out because if it's just
schools people are going to say well that's that yeah because we don't respect teachers we don't respect education we have a wrestling executive in charge of the Department of Education so people will be able to write it off a little easier if it's just schools where if there is strong economic impact and I would I would urge caution if you're not going to spend money but it if you decide I have to spend some money go somewhere that is owned by
Immigrants.
Go to
a small business.
Yes.
Don't don't go to Starbucks.
Starbucks
or not a
corporate
place.
No, that's all right.
I don't want to throw him under the bus, but at the same time, yeah, like go somewhere.
Yeah,
be careful where you spend your money and let your voice be heard.
But it is it is going to be unusual.
And I also to answer my own question, which is, should kids be pulled into a political movement?
They are being pulled into this movement and you're welcome to chime in 855-75 Civic 855-752-4842.
They're being pulled into this movement and the one good thing that I have seen come out of all of this turmoil is young people's engagement.
Yeah.
We saw it a lot with school shootings and boy those poor kids were shouted down by
all sorts of mindless people who couldn't believe, why should we listen to a teenager about gun violence?
Well, because they're the ones who are getting shot.
Why should we listen to kids when it comes to immigration?
They don't understand.
Well, they understand that they may have been born here and their parents now are in danger of being taken away.
Maybe their aunt, their grandparents, their friends, parents, whoever is being taken away and then disappeared.
Not even sent back to where they may have come from.
They're just being disappeared.
So I'm
I'm bolstered by the fact that young people are getting involved.
And even in grade school, there are kids who are catching on.
And you can educate your child.
And even if you're not in one of the groups that is being affected by this, you can still talk to your children and explain why they don't have school today.
It's not just a day off.
Mom, dad, why are we off today?
Well, and then give them an age-appropriate explanation.
Because there are ways to tell a kid about this.
Kids are perceptive, right?
And they're going to...
Here's the thing that I always learned about kids, and you know this as well.
You had your own daughter, you also worked with kids, you were a teacher.
Kids are perceptive, and if you don't give them, a lot of kids are gonna be too afraid to ask the questions, or they might not even know how to ask the questions, especially if they're young.
And if you don't give them answers in a way that they're going to understand it, just like adults, they're gonna come to their own conclusions.
And because they're kids, they don't understand all the facts of what's happening.
they only see what they can see and they are also perceptive in the fact that if we're scared or we're trying to avoid things or we're trying to go away through a different way about a different schedule because we're scared of immigration tactics.
Or we're
angry.
Yes, they're gonna pick up on all of that and I can't imagine
what it's like for teachers in some of these classrooms right now who are trying to manage that type of fear, that type of anger, try to protect these students in a way that, I mean, teachers aren't paid enough, but now we're asking them to do this too in certain degrees, right?
And they can't stand up to federal authorities, they're teachers.
If the federal authorities come into the school, if they take that child, if they're affecting that family, teachers' hands are essentially tied.
But
they're left to deal with the classroom.
Right.
And the pressure is on the districts.
The pressure is on the front desk.
They're the ones who have to stop
people.
And there are policies in place.
And I know the school I used to teach at is in a very racially diverse neighborhood.
A lot of Hispanic people in the neighborhood.
And they are the teachers that I still talk to.
There's a lot of nerves.
And the kids do pick up on this.
You know, I don't know how many districts across the state.
It'll be interesting when we come back
on
Monday to see the coverage, but there are these protests.
And you can call them protests, you can call them walkouts, you can call them work stops, whatever you want to call them.
But school districts are taking notice.
And to be clear, in Milwaukee, the public schools were already closed.
tomorrow and Friday because they had pre-planned professional development days.
But Vosis-Dela Frontera is planning rallies and marches throughout Madison and Milwaukee.
A lot of the teachers, it sounds like, especially in Milwaukee, will be participating in those.
And then, of course, we've already discussed the plans here in Madison.
But if you're a parent, we...
We'd love to hear from you.
Are your kids off on Friday?
And not because of professional development like in Milwaukee, but are your kids off specifically for this May Day protest?
And what do you think about that?
What have you told your kids?
We talk about how you can give age-appropriate messages.
What have you told your kids?
About what is going on eight five five seven five civic eight five five seven five two four eight four two because I know There's a lot of you who are probably on your way to drop your kids off
at school right
now or or the kids are getting ready to go catch the bus or however they get to school Other than hey, you don't have school Friday What have you told them?
Yeah, or what if they asked you?
I think one of the most intriguing conversations I've had is, and I have a lot of friends who are teachers as well, and one of the most intriguing conversations I had a few weeks ago was with one of my friends who is a teacher in Minneapolis.
And she was, she is a teacher.
just a few blocks from where the major ICE activity was happening in Minneapolis.
And there were a few weeks there for, you know, why that surge was happening, Metro Surge is as the administration like to call it, where she was down to sometimes a third to half of her class, because it is a very diverse neighborhood, right?
Which is why that neighborhood was being targeted.
And even a couple of weeks ago, she and I were
having a conversation and I said, are you back to normal capacity?
And she, she laughed and she said, not even close.
She said, in fact, she said, I've got a few students I'm very concerned about because I don't actually know what happened to them.
and we aren't getting any word.
The school district doesn't have any word from the family.
Now, she said whether that means they took action themselves.
They're just staying low.
They don't want anybody to know.
She said whether they decided to vacate the neighborhood and go somewhere else.
She said we don't know, but she said they're not leaving any trace.
And she said that is the hardest part of what we're seeing.
she personally is seeing in her classroom because she said, I care about these kids and I don't know what's happening to them.
And I thought that was heartbreaking because she's a very good dedicated teacher and she is even one of those people who has contemplated getting out of teaching because of how hard it's getting, but she's a lifer.
And she teases, she says, this is my last year and every year because she loves those kids so darn much, she goes back and she's incredible at what she does.
But it was painful listening to her give that experience of
literally not knowing where a handful of her students are at this very moment because they don't want to be found.
It's tough.
I don't know how you do it in that environment because kids have questions and you do.
It's amazing because when you say, oh, she really cares about those kids.
If you're not a teacher, you may not get it.
How do you care?
How do you care that deeply about 30 different kids every year?
I don't know, but they do.
And some and some of those kids stick with you forever.
And to imagine them disappearing without a trace is just, you know, kids move away, kid, whatever.
But you kind of, you know, but to not have any answers is just terrifying.
When we come back, we are going to talk about
prison and not in the usual way because prison you know we're supposed to rehabilitate people haha well here's a program that actually may be doing
just that
story and make you feel a little good on a Wednesday morning this is daybreak this is the Civic Media Network
Across the state of Wisconsin, they break with Brian and Jamie is back.
752 right now.
Thank you for joining us today on the Civic Media Network.
A few clouds.
little mix of sun in there every now and then too.
Looks like we're going to dry things out though over the next few days across the state with some cooler temperatures.
So if you are somebody who's been impacted by the floods, hopefully you get some reprieve.
Hopefully you can get some relief here and, uh, you know, maybe, maybe dry the basement out or dry the business out.
I know there's been a lot of businesses over in the state that have been impacted by the floodwaters.
Um, so yeah, dry, dry weather though this week, Brian is, is very, very.
much appreciated in this day.
That is
very good.
Parker, I gotta ask,
you're thinking
on that.
Now, I know the band is Three Dog Night, but do you think the song is Jeremiah was a bulldog?
Why did you
go with
that song for this particular story?
I am told this is joy to the world.
It is joy to the world.
Yes.
It is joy to the world.
Okay.
Yeah.
Seems joyful.
I don't know the song.
It would be a little bit more Parker's time.
I understand.
There were two ways it could have gone.
A dog, B joy.
Yeah, there you go.
Well,
it's the band and then joy.
OK,
good enough.
It's a great song, though.
I wasn't.
Yeah.
Oh, no, it is.
It is.
I just caught me off guard and made me laugh.
I tried to figure out Parker's mindset.
I wasn't
going to use who let the dogs out again.
No,
thank goodness.
No.
Because they can't get out there.
No, they can't.
This is a great story, though.
It is a very good story.
It was in the Wisconsin Examiner and they wrote this feature on the PAWS program in Wisconsin prisons.
Now, the PAWS program refers to
uh prisoners assisting with service dogs program so basically prisoners are training service dogs and it is being used not only for the training of these very crucial dogs but to help rehabilitate some prisoners which is supposedly what we're supposed to be putting people in prison for right to rehabilitate people not just punishment or warehousing but we're
It's supposed to be
prepping them to come back out.
That's the
hope.
Terrific.
So can-do canines matches service dogs with clients to help with mobility issues and all that.
Everything you'd need a service dog from.
The organization partners with five Minnesota prisons and four Wisconsin prisons to train these dogs from the
Person who is the executive director Jeff Johnson.
He said I all I frequently hear from inmates That this is I don't know if redemption is the right word But this is a way to give back that they haven't really had before in their lives They also get the unconditional love of a dog and some of them haven't had unconditional love from anything or anyone before this So it really that's amazing.
It's a great.
I think this is the kind of program
that you go, well, for all the problems, and there are a myriad of problems in the prison system here in Wisconsin, and we've talked about a lot of them, and I'm sure we'll continue to have to talk about them.
But this is the kind of thing that you go, all right, I can see this, maybe, maybe dealing with a dog for a few months, training it to help other people, maybe that breaks through some of these guys' tough exteriors and makes them rethink their choices.
Maybe I'm being you for a minute, Jamie, and being two rose-colored glasses on
this.
I don't know.
Dogs have this unique ability, and I know not everybody's a dog lover, but even if you are a cat lover, right, there's a reason why you're attracted to that animal.
They have this way of breaking through.
that sometimes humans can't.
And sometimes it's just because I think they don't talk back.
But they listen.
Dogs are great listeners on some of my worst days.
Aspen knows all sorts of things that nobody else is gonna know, right?
Because they have that ability.
And animals in general, especially dogs, because I'm a dog lover, they have this ability to know when it's a really bad or hard day.
Right?
Like if I'm having a really tough day, Aspen is glued to me.
She is absolutely glued to me.
She will not leave my site and she does everything she can to get my attention and refocus me.
And that is what dogs do.
And that's why I love programs like this because, you know, there, there are literally people.
who have talked about this program that haven't had any sort of contact other than the prisoners or haven't seen a dog in over 20 years of their life.
And now they are housed in a separate facility of the prison for the dog program.
Each dog has two handlers.
They live together in the cell with this dog and there's a purpose to getting up every day because this dog needs you.
This dog is depending on you,
right?
And they teach them everything.
They're sitting, staying, retrieving, cleaning up, putting them in, cleaning things up and putting them away.
So they are really involved in this because in the story, if you read it on the Wisconsin Examiner, they talked to a woman who was a recipient of one of these dogs.
These dogs, this is not just a time filler for these inmates.
This is, they're doing real work for real people.
And these dogs are, you've seen people with service dogs.
They're amazing.
And
then I go home, my dogs are lazy.
They're just, you know, they lay downstairs and howl because they want me to come feed them.
They're not, the only service they do is for
them.
I have to tell you, Aspen will never be a service dog, not in any way, shape or form.
However, since we adopted her almost three and a half years ago now, she has been in puppy training because one of the things that we are working with Aspen- For three and a half years?
She's been in puppy training for three and a half years because one of the things that we are working on with her, and when I say puppy training, she's gone through, she's
advanced through her courses.
Oh, OK.
I was going to say, remedial.
No, she's very well.
She can be very well trained.
Depends and if there's food involved, but at the same time one of the goals that we're working towards over the next couple of years is getting her to be a I don't even want to say therapy dog a companion dog.
I I want her to be able to go into schools because she loves kids She absolutely loves kids and kids absolutely love her And I would love for her to be able to go into schools to libraries to be that dog that sits with them where they read out loud Yeah, because she's she's just that type of dog and she's just got that disposition
with them and she is so loving and she is so sweet.
She's still a little wiggly because she's only about three yet.
So we still got some work to do.
Probably in the next couple of years, that's our goal.
But I've even seen what she does for kids, right?
In that aspect.
one of my friends who's first grade teacher started that last year.
They she got this dog that it was trained for that and now the dog comes in and it'll
go to
classrooms for a little bit and just
it's work
can calm and and pet and it just it
really does
help.
So good for this good for the pause program and can do canines.
And that is it's nice.
Now if you're listening to WMDX, see you again.
Wisconsin wakes up here.
Back to Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
Good morning.
Thank you so much for joining us on this Wednesday.
It is six minutes after eight right now.
My name is Jamie Martinson.
And I'm Brian Noonan.
Good morning.
It is time for headlines.
Let's look at the war, which is in its eighth week.
First headline at 20, at least 21 people have been executed in Iran and 4,000 arrested since the start of its war with the U.S.
and Israel, according to the United Nations Human Rights Office.
The executions were carried out amid Iran's crackdown on dissent, in particular through national security-related charges, the UN Human Rights Chief said this morning.
In other headlines, U.S.
President Donald Trump has posted a mocked-up image of himself holding a gun and wearing aviator sunglasses on truth social.
Alongside that is a warning to, for Iran, no more Mr. Nice Guy, says the text on the image.
It's alongside an image of the American flag as well.
Very nice.
He's so classy.
The United Arab Emirates will withdraw from the organization of petroleum exporting countries.
You may know it as OPEC on May 1st.
The UAE state news agency WAM reported the decision aligns with the United Arab Emirates long-term strategic and economic vision and the development of its energy sector including accelerating investment in domestic energy production according to this statement from the UAE.
And finally, despite that declared ceasefire, Israeli strikes killed at least eight people throughout southern Lebanon yesterday, at least according to state media and national authorities.
All right.
Well, this is a quagmire that we are stuck in for the near future because I don't think Iran wants to negotiate via truth social.
No.
And if you're
not sending anybody to sit down with them.
So
yep, I was just gonna say and if you don't have anybody at the table during those negotiations, it's hard to actually negotiate.
So here we are.
Here we are.
When is November again?
Few months yet.
I just keep
holding out hope.
Hold out hope.
Springs eternal.
Oh, well, that's stuff we needed to know from Iran.
But what about as we need to know right here?
It's a wake-up call in more ways than one.
Time for some sh** you need to know.
All right, well, in the ballroom that will not die news, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has formally asked a federal judge to overturn the judge's own ruling that blocked construction of the White House ballroom.
In a nine page filing late Monday, Blanche argued that the shooting at the White House Correspondents Association dinner is proof that the ballroom is necessary for the president's safety and construction must be allowed to proceed.
Okay.
federal just do the news Brian okay federal judge Richard Leon imposed all I have a conversation excuse me while I talk to myself for a moment federal judge Richard Leon imposed a preliminary injunction earlier this month you know this that paused above ground construction until the administration obtains congressional approval well construction of a presidential bunker beneath the east wing was not subject to the injunction because
They want to bury him down there too.
A federal appellate court now reviewing the case then allowed all construction to continue temporarily and we'll hear further arguments in early June.
The lawsuit against construction was initially filed late last year by the Trust for Historic Preservation.
It said Monday that it had no intention of dropping its lawsuit, which quote, endangers no one and which respectfully asked the administration to follow the law.
That is a crazy request.
Can't do
it, Jamie.
I can't just read it.
Blanche is filing as Judge Leon for an indicative ruling.
Essentially a request for Leon to consider the impact of the dinner shooting and state whether he would lift the injunction or throw out the case if it were sent back to him.
We can't I can't do this anymore.
Republican Rand Paul, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee said Monday he would introduce legislation to permit ballroom construction.
How have we kept our president safe?
for 250 years without a ballroom?
I have no idea.
That's a great question.
How are our leaders all over the world kept safe without ballrooms?
Dare
I say, how is Vladimir Zelensky kept safe in a war without a ballroom?
Right.
They've had a lot of underground tunnels for Zelensky.
So there is that.
How many
people do those seat?
Oh, I don't know.
I'm assuming probably, you probably don't want that many people down there.
I'm assuming if you have your tunnels full, it's probably not a good day in Ukraine.
And I'm not trying to be facetious.
I'm just saying that if the tunnels are full, it's probably a bad day in that ongoing war.
Another war perpetuated by a country, mind you.
But this is obviously, this is not about security.
at this point.
I don't care what this administration wants to tell
you.
It
is.
Look it.
There was a very interesting picture posted online of when King Charles, then Prince Charles, was sitting in the Oval Office with none other than Richard Milhouse Nixon.
Right.
And then a picture of him sitting there yesterday with Donald J. Trump.
The amount of outlandish decoration that has been put in the Oval Office and all over the White House.
And the fact that he does, as you mentioned earlier in the show, Jamie, he idolizes kings and dictators, and he wants this for himself.
He wants his own palace of Versailles in America.
We don't need it.
We don't want it.
and he's trying to break the law by getting it, but it will not go away.
Well, and that's just it.
I mean, if you're looking at, if you're taking out the security issue and you're looking at simply the ego part of it, you're also looking at bypassing all of our constitutional checks and norms.
And I don't care who you are.
If you are somebody who is a more conservative voter, that should be very important to you because in this case, even though this ballroom is being described as privately funded and it's coming from
but you're right, it's absolutely not.
Because taxpayers are gonna have to be part of the conversation because there is still security infrastructure, there's still federal land, there's still gonna be long-term maintenance on this.
So to even get the thing up and going, it's going to take millions and millions of dollars, which they have not completely accounted for, no matter what they tell you, it has not all been completely raised.
So it is going to have to come from taxpayer money.
So essentially, we're buying the ballroom and not to mention the fact,
that the White House is already owned by the American people.
That's why there's checks and balances.
Plus, more is going to come out about this, but there was a report in the New York Times yesterday that the contractor who is supposed to be building this ballroom got a no-bid government contract on another project that is
completely against the law.
And the
Congress, the Constitution specifically states the law states that there must be open bidding on all government contracts to find the best deal.
They got a no bid contract on something else.
And then they got this, this thing too.
So there's a lot more coming out about this, but it is ego driven.
And it is ridiculous.
Yeah.
But there's more stuff we
need.
There is more stuff you need to know.
We're going to bring it right back here to the state of Wisconsin because this is a fascinating story.
I do love gerrymandering.
I do.
A second three panel judge yesterday dismissed a challenge to Wisconsin's congressional maps, ruling it has no authority to act on the claims without further input from the state supreme court.
Now, in this particular ruling, it was stated until the state supreme court says other
non-justiceable and non-con-isable, I knew that was going to be a hard one for me, under Wisconsin law, according to the judge.
Now, the law firm that brought this suit said it would immediately appeal the ruling to the state supreme court that that lawsuit was brought by law forward.
The decision is one of two cases that have been under consideration by separate panels composed of three judges from different counties,
appointed by the Liberal-led state Supreme Court.
The lawsuits, which were filed in July of last year, followed multiple failed attempts to redraw the maps, which are currently represented by six Republicans and two Democrats.
Now, Law Forward is representing a group called Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy.
And the case essentially contends that the current maps amount to an anti-competitive gerrymander.
Republican members, of course, of the state's congressional
delegation and others want to dismiss this lawsuit.
The state's high court issued orders November 25th, concluding that the two legal challenges constituted a quote, an action to challenge the portion month of any congressional or state legislative district under a 2011 state law that requires these challenges to be heard by a panel appointed by the Supreme Court.
This was actually the first time that the 2011 law had been invoked in any sort of redistricting case though.
So we're just making history all over.
the place with this gerrymandering argument.
Here's the thing, you have a solution here, right?
The governor has laid out a solution.
There was a special session that was called two weeks ago now, that the Republicans refused to participate in.
Governor Evers would like to have permanent maps put into place.
So you have...
an option here.
You have the option to negotiate with the Democrats to make sure that maps are fair to represent all of the constituents.
Now, if there's a reason you don't want to do that, that might say more about where you think your politics are and who supports you than anything.
But there's an option.
And spell those out.
Don't just use the, it's unfair.
Right.
That's a second grader's defense.
Right.
Tell us what your reasoning is for not wanting these maps
permanent.
Yeah, and you can say, Well, what about population shifts and data?
Well, the population shifts are mostly going to come from your major cities, Madison, Milwaukee, Eau Claire, bigger, bigger towns.
The population shifts in rural areas, probably are not going to increase.
They may decrease a little.
But what's what's the real reason?
And the real reason is we all know
Holding on to power
now to be
guaranteeing victory in certain
yes absolutely and to be completely fair because I know we have one other story this three panel This this panel of three judges did not say that the maps are fair.
They also didn't say they're unfair It's they simply said we aren't aren't going to decide this yet Which puts everything back in the hands of the state Supreme Court Which by the way will be a 5-2 majority once Chris Taylor is sworn in
So what do you say?
Well
here's another fact in more as you need to know Jimmy Kimmel is in trouble again he's in the crosshairs of the president we talked about this a little bit yesterday but now the FCC which is led by a Republican ally of Donald Trump
is trying to go after the licenses of the parent company, which is Disney, which you know has a new CEO.
So Disney's ABC is hereby directed to file license renewals for all of their licensed TV stations within 30 days.
In other words, by May 28, 2026, the FCC said in an order published yesterday afternoon, the order is not going to affect local stations right away.
It's just the start of a protracted legal process.
But nevertheless, the FCC order is an extraordinary escalation.
We know the Trump administration is very thin-skinned and cannot take a joke.
We know that they sued CBS and CBS acquiesced.
They sued them over the editing of not a Trump interview, which was edited heavily the other day, but of an old Kamala Harris interview they gave in.
That led to, if you want to connect the dots, that led to Colbert being gone.
Donald Trump has gone after Jimmy Kimmel before.
He was suspended last year for a little bit and came back.
So far, Disney is standing firm and saying, no, we are not canceling Jimmy Kimmel's show.
That was a joke.
It was a joke
in
the context of a fake roast.
You don't have to like the joke.
But that is it is definitely not but the weaponization of the FCC is just another attempt And we're gonna talk about we're gonna put talking again about the weaponization of the justice system in just a few minutes for the Justice Department, but Kimmel answered all of this on Monday said his comment was garnered has garnered so much criticism about that It was a joke
There's a joke about the fact that
Trump is almost 80
and she's younger.
This is censorship.
This
is silencing any voice of dissent and also being a thin-skinned little baby.
We'll get to more of that after this on Daybreak.
All facts, no fiction.
It's Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
We hope that your morning is going well so far.
Thank you so much for joining us on this Wednesday.
It is 22 minutes after 8 o'clock.
You're listening to the Civic Media Network.
My name is Jamie Martinson.
And I'm Brian Newton.
If you've been following this and you saw a picture that was posted on social media and then later deleted by James Comey of C-Shells with featuring the numbers 8-6-4-7, do you believe that that constitutes a threat?
8-6-4-7.
Wasn't this the eternity ago?
What's that?
Are we still talking about something that happened like over a year ago?
No, no.
We're talking about something that happened yesterday.
related to something that happened over a year
ago.
8-5-5-7-5-7-5-7-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.
Well, Jamie, if at first you don't succeed, try try again.
That is the motto of this administration.
Only when it comes to filing criminal charges against former adversaries.
Sure.
So you remember James Comey was indicted once before for his testimony in front of Congress?
Well, that case completely fell apart because there was nothing there.
Well, now they have decided they're going to try to indict him again and in fact have indicted him and have issued an arrest warrant for James Comey.
You go, that name sounds familiar, Brian.
Sure, he was the director of the FBI.
Did he cost Hillary Clinton the election?
We can argue that another day.
But he was also a guy who would not completely pledge allegiance to Donald Trump, which made Donald Trump very angry.
And Donald Trump does not forget.
So a year ago, like Jamie said, he posted a picture on Twitter.
when he was walking on the beach.
Now, it wasn't clear if he just saw this picture.
I don't think he made the shells.
It seemed as if he just came across this.
Someone had arranged seashells in four numbers.
Eight, six, little space,
four,
seven.
Right.
Now...
the FBI who, according to Cash Patel, has been investigating this for a year and a half to try to get to the bottom of
it.
This is all they have to do?
This is all they have to do?
Okay.
This is important
stuff, Jimmy.
They're seashells.
They're seashells.
Sometimes I feel like I warp into a new time span.
So I have to make sure that I am currently with whatever, April 29th, 2026.
Okay, go.
Go ahead.
Listen, I understand your confusion, but I guess we must clear it up.
That's all they have to do.
This is pressing a pressing matter.
They're saying this is constituted a threat against Donald Trump's life, that 86 can be interpreted into kill.
Now, James Comey said, Well, I took it down because I didn't know that.
And if you've ever worked in a restaurant, you know, 86 just means we're out of it.
Dump it, ditch it.
So I would I when I first saw this picture back when it first came out I thought it meant dump Trump.
Yeah, I didn't think anything nefarious at all
Well, Jamie, you know why we're
reasonable human being rational human being all
right You have independent thought.
Okay, you're not always looking to carry out a grudge.
You're not a whiny little baby
You're a grown woman who can think for herself.
So this is a three-page indictment.
Comey faces one charge of threats against the president and successors.
One charge of transmitting a threat in interstate commerce.
This could not be more transparent.
Now, I saw it.
Caitlin Collins, who you know is a great friend of the president from CNN.
He despises Caitlin Collins.
She pushes hard.
She put puts up with zero BS from them.
She said this morning that her sources in the DOJ are saying that this is
the weakest case that the DOJ has ever filed against anyone.
All of these cases of retribution have been thrown out in court.
Every single one of them, every single one of them, which is what this administration said Pam Bondi was essentially getting fired for because she was so weak on being able to prosecute these types of cases.
You can't prosecute cases in front of a judge that have no merit.
Juris are not going to be able to find any evidence that there was any...
wrongdoing in these particular cases.
This one is not going to be any different.
I mean, it's just not.
And all this is, is basically trying to get some sort of retribution.
That's what this is.
This, again, going back to a conversation we were just having a few minutes ago about Jimmy Kimmel and ABC, this is another form of censorship.
But this one is going to play out in the courts and that's what this is.
It's never going to get there.
No.
It's
never going to get to court.
And I would
I saw a legal expert on talking yesterday.
And the basis of this case, you have to prove that James Comey intended for
this to
be a threat.
That's
a Supreme Court ruling.
The Supreme Court ruling says that there has to be a true threat requires intent.
That's what the Supreme Court has ruled.
That is a ruling from this president's court because he thinks they're a personal court of his.
And yesterday, Comey put out video statements saying, listen,
I took this down right when somebody said that it could possibly be interpreted that way I took it down this is not this is not my intent there's no chance this goes anywhere and so you know we've got our new acting attorney general trying his best taking his big swing and it's
Now
he's going to
whiff horribly.
Let's also be clear, our new acting attorney general was the president's personal attorney in several court cases leading up to the 2024 election.
He is essentially the personal attorney of the president of the United States.
Which is what the Justice Department is supposed to be, right?
Yes,
yes, of course.
That's what it's supposed to be.
No, it's supposed to be completely independent.
It's absolutely 100 independent.
100% independent.
And I had a friend ask me yesterday because Jeanine Pirro keeps getting these cases thrown at her.
And I had a good friend ask me the other day, if she keeps losing, will she end up going back to Fox pretty soon?
Mm-hmm
that
I don't know if Fox will have her Roger makes a good point And I saw this image yesterday as a reminder a few years ago Donald Trump posted a photo of a truck flying a bunch of Trump flags with a bounding gag Joe Biden in the back with the header 86 46 as Joe Biden was present at the time using the same logic that the DOJ is using couldn't Trump be arrested or indicted for the same kind of crime very good
Very good.
And then Don says he's listening on WMDX, electing really old Republicans as dumb.
Perhaps we are going to talk about guns and bullets in a small t-
Local news, community stories, and the conversations that matter most.
Now, more Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
It's 8.35 right now.
We hope that you are having a great start to your Wednesday morning.
Thank you so much for joining us today on the Civic Media Network.
My name is Jamie Martinson.
And good morning.
I'm Brian Noonan.
All right, listen to this.
A California-based gun dealer, a small-town police chief, and a scam to import illegal armor-piercing ammunition.
That does sound like all the ingredients for a low budget movie.
All those components though came together in Wadsworth County.
Now the gun dealer has agreed to plead guilty to federal charges.
John Dietrich is an investigative reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, whose work has revealed injustices and wrongdoing.
Recently, he published a fascinating project behind the gun, which is ongoing.
That reframed the issue of firearm injuries and deaths, focusing on gun owners.
He's been covering this story and he joins us now.
John, good to have you and always a pleasure to talk to you.
I don't know where to start, so I'm going to let you just
Give us the background on this story because it is wild.
It is a wild story.
So yeah, thanks for the intro.
Good to be with you, Brian, Jamie.
So yeah, the back story here is this criminal, I cover federal court from time to time, get in there.
I used to cover it more and it's been drawing me back lately for cases just like this.
So yeah, the basic scenario is laid out by federal prosecutors is that these two brothers
Darren and Jacob Dowd, who are from California from the Sacramento area, are gun dealers.
You know, they have a federal firearms licensee.
And they were working with somebody, basically a scam, to work with a local police chief in the town of Lynn, which is a small town in Walworth County.
And it's not a big town.
But what they did is law enforcement can request certain armaments, certain ammunition, things like that.
And the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Fire
firearms will give exceptions for local law enforcement.
And so what these brothers were doing was working with this police chiefs to say, hey, can you put in and say your town needs like a lot of armor piercing rounds, which, you know, it's a small, it's a small department and just a few cops and, and I mean, like a half a million rounds.
And, you know, it was, it was absurd.
Sniffed it out, you know, and I mean it was sort of captain obvious But I mean credit on them that they didn't just sort of rubber stamp it it went through so the deal didn't go through But but yeah, there was like a middleman.
I think you know the police chief's college roommate was kind of the go-between to the It says stuff of movies really
I mean
For our listeners, you mentioned the hundreds of thousands, even millions of rounds of armor-piercing ammunition, but for anybody who doesn't understand the inner workings of our local small police departments especially, explain to us just how unusual this actually was that ATF would have sniffed this out immediately.
Yeah, I mean so again when you're looking at you know at how many rounds you know first of all the kind of You know the kind of ammunition it's just not needed that often and when you don't have that many you know Officers you're not gonna need that many rounds.
You know these rounds are really you know, they're they're Expensive because they're hard to get it.
The thing is that what's interesting here is that they're not illegal
you know, to possess, but you have to be able to import them.
And these were coming from Bosnia-Herzegovina.
That's where the importer, the ammunition maker was located.
So in order to bring that in, you need that, you know, the special exception under ATF rules.
And so again, that's carved out for law enforcement.
But I mean, even for a department like, you know, Madison or Milwaukee, I mean, that's a lot of rounds and it's specialty rounds.
So those wouldn't be rounds that regular cops
would necessarily be using all time.
This would be more like the tactical or SWAT team.
You know, things of that nature that they would need the specialized rounds.
Certainly not a small department, you know, of just a few cops.
John Diedrich is our guest, he's an investigative reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
You can read all of John's work at jsonline.com.
All right, Lynn is a small town in Warwick County.
We've got two
Arms dealers from California.
How do these how do these groups get together where you know because it seems Seems like there should be other small departments somewhere between Sacramento and Lynn that they could have talked to
Yeah, you know, I think it's easy, you know, you haven't covered Courts and these kind of things for a while It's always like you know who you know and geography might be less important as the connection that you have and so there's an unnamed source who acted as the go-between
Um, and, um, an individual who's not charged and, you know, usually when somebody's just got their initials in there and they might be, you know, cooperating and, and, um, and that's maybe where, you know, when they investigated this, that's what they focused on.
But that individual has a connection between the police chief.
uh, chief bushy and, uh, and the, uh, the gun dealers, the, the doubts in, in California.
And, um, so how does that happen?
That's not really spelled out in court documents.
Exactly how they met each other other than, uh, the, the police chief who's no longer the police chief and Lynn, and I should be really clear is not charged with anything right now.
He does have a lawyer.
Uh, he's refused comment, but the brothers have both pled guilty and are coming into court, uh, uh, just in the eastern district.
to Wisconsin and are, you know, moving through the process in federal court in Milwaukee, but the chief hasn't been charged nor has anybody else been charged.
We don't know, you know, ultimately would they be or not, but, um, but that's the, that's the connection is somebody knew the chief, somebody knew.
And again, there's, there's not, um, you know, suffice to say, uh, I haven't seen this kind of arrangement happen at least show up in federal court that often.
So it's not just like any department or any chief would do this.
And I think what was interesting though, Chief Bush, in the town of Lynn...
You know meeting you know I talked to the chairman of the town of Lynn and he was describing how the police chief you know came in and You know he was asking him.
He was like laying out this you know arrangement They didn't really understand what was going on because the kickback here right the money That was provided by the brothers was ostensibly to be used for police equipment So like a new squad car things of that nature not
necessarily haven't seen in court documents indications that the chief himself was enriched, but more was helping his department.
So for the town of Lynn, it's like, oh, okay, I don't really understand that, but that sounds like he didn't really lay out what was happening, but that was the play.
And did he in fact use the money for that equipment?
Yeah, well, I mean, it was all in process.
And then the feds came in and put up, you know, they didn't bring in the ammunition in the end, but that was the deal that, you know, he had told the chief that, you know, the board, that I'm going to balance my budget and get more things that, you know, that you guys can't afford to give me.
So, but the whole process didn't play out because the ammunition never made it in the country because the ATF shut it down.
Were the brothers trying to, was this a resale scheme by the brothers?
Was this stockpiling?
What is the investigation showing?
Yeah, no.
Yeah, it's a sales thing.
Yeah, they have a gun store in Sacramento, and they were selling these.
And these rounds, depending, it'd be a few bucks, to five bucks a round.
I mean, depending on the scarcity of ammunition, we just went through the pandemic where ammunition was really scarce, and this would even be more scarce.
So the market would do, but no, it looks like financially these guys were looking to make a buck.
That was their business.
I mean, there's also indications in there about them doing other things like impersonating the ATF, which there's a photo in the criminal complaint of Jacob Dowd in ATF garb.
And they actually would like pretend this according to the search warrants.
plead to be ATF agents and like go and take people's guns and claim that they were using them on behalf of the government.
You know, things of this nature.
No doubt that caught the attention of ATF who was investigating.
They're not charged with that right now, but you know, kind of putting a thumb in the, you know, in the eye, so to speak.
So, John Diedrich is with us.
He's investigative reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Jsonline.com is where you can read everything.
And I want to get into behind the gun a little bit, but before we do that, you kind of mentioned it a little, but is there any indication that anybody else, the sheriff especially, who is not charged now with any crimes, are you hearing any rumblings that this case is not completely over?
Well, I mean, this took, yes, I think it's safe to say this took like six months for Jacob to come into court with a plea.
And Darren, the other brother, fled out a while ago.
And that happens in federal court.
Things move in slow motion.
But it also turns out sometimes that more information is developed, new sources and so forth.
I don't think the book is closing it that you know the prosecutors are our mom as they always you know they just usually are pretty careful about this.
I can't by DOJ rules talk about some of these things.
But I don't know that the chief is totally in the clear yet.
And so I would say that, you know, stay tuned on this.
I don't have an indication.
I'm not trying to be cheeky about saying he is.
I know that he's going to be charged or not.
I really don't.
It's just how long this has played out.
I think it bears watching to see what comes next.
My goodness.
And Brian had mentioned behind the gun.
And this is a project you've been working on for quite a few years.
So first of all, before we get into what you found, explain to us what this project is, John.
Yeah, so I did this through, yeah, I work at Journal Sentinel and then I went and did a fellowship at Marquette University at the O'Brien.
fellowship for public service journalism.
And what we wanted to do was look at gun deaths and gun injuries in a different way.
I've covered this issue for, you know, more than 20 years at the Journal Sentinel, but it just felt like a lot of the lines were sort of like on repeat and distressingly and depressingly.
you know, unrepleat that, you know, the narratives are well known.
But what I did was I looked at it from, you know, as Brian, as you alluded to at the beginning, from a perspective of the gun owners, tell me something different.
And what I found, first of all, I looked at statistics statewide and looked at gun deaths, including suicides, because it's important to note, and people might not know this, but seven of 10 gun deaths in Wisconsin are suicides.
And, you know, that isn't always talked about.
It isn't included in, you know, when we use that phrase gun violence, so suicide may not be commonly understood to be in there.
But when you include suicide and you adjust for population, the map looks a lot different in Wisconsin.
I mean, Milwaukee is still very high for gun deaths, but there's smaller counties like Wood County and other counties up north that are small that have a different gun deaths look differently there.
So, and gun owners, as I leaned into this,
had some and have some really interesting you know solutions and they care very much about the issue and I just think it turns out that you know people who are maybe more on the sort of gun control side have not seen gun right side.
They haven't really come together as much and I we're actually seeing more of that now.
I'm more hopeful about this issue than I was before I started the project.
Well, it's a really enlightening project and I urge people on both sides of the gun issue to go check out John series behind the gun at jsonline.com But you also the you didn't just write these and then hope that people will read them You've been having a lot of live events behind the different sections.
I remember talking to you about the one with about Suicides and now you just had one in March as well.
Correct.
Do you have one coming up?
That's right.
Well, we had one in Wausau Gosh, that's been two years now
It's wild.
It's been that long.
But we called that one at the intersection of mental health and firearms.
Up in that part of the state in Wausau, there's, you know, that is more of a suicide issue.
So we talked about separation of lethal means at times of distress, what that looks like, who you could turn to, the gun shop project where you can bring firearms, no questions asked to a gun store and have them safe, keep them for a while, those kind of things.
And then in March, we had an event, again, a first of its kind called the Milwaukee Gun Owner Safety Summit.
We had it at Prince Hall at 12th and North in Milwaukee.
And we brought people together there to say, Hey, can we have a different dialogue?
You know, often when things happen around firearms and firearms deaths, especially in Milwaukee, the, the line will be, you know, that you often will hear is let's put the guns down.
Can we put the guns down?
Which is a fine message, but as.
Unfortunately, John, we're out of time, but
I want to tell everybody, again, go read it behind the gun and John's latest work on jsonline.com.
John Diedrich, always a pleasure to talk to you.
Look forward to having you again, John.
Wisconsin Wakes Up Here.
Act to Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
It's 8.52 right now.
That is the weirdest version of this song I've ever heard in my life.
Man,
I'm flashing back to my bouncer days.
This is
fantastic.
I got my back to the wall.
I'm watching the dance floor, and I'm just kind of swaying.
Hello, ladies.
It's a great song, though, for what we're about to talk to you to end the show today.
If I came to you Jamie and Parker and Frank and I said hey, I got a great idea for a show out We're gonna go have a couple drinks you would say oh that sounds good, and I would say and we're gonna kink and draw This is a Jamie pointed this out, so I'm gonna let you tell I
I don't know where you get some of your
stories.
But I
read this and it was, woo,
I'm like, hello.
It is something.
It is something.
So King can draw is actually a session that's being held at bars across the country.
The event is part of a...
practice, especially right now around the DC area, where people shell out a few bucks to draw live naked models at a bar.
No commitment, no experience necessary.
It's just- For
who are the artists or the model?
Everybody, I guess.
And who's committing?
I don't know.
I love you, Bottle.
But it's casual and community-oriented.
Okay.
No different, really, they promote this as, you know, these artists attending pub trivia night.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
This is much different than pub trivia night.
I think it's more
interesting.
It feels
a little
different.
I don't know why you guys are being such prudes.
They paint pottery at some
bars for pottery nights.
They do, as
Jamie said, trivia.
They do.
There's karaoke.
There's naked people on a table while I
sketch,
allegedly.
It's just different.
I didn't
even bring a pencil.
I'm just using my
finger to draw on
paper.
So
the founder of King can draw, which I just love the name, says that it's a space for creativity, self-expression, and appreciation of the human form in a way that's respectful, open, and completely judgment-free.
Now, she is actually at this point led 43 different people situated in
to three groups that face each other with different models through these warm-up exercises.
And for about two minutes, you keep your pencil just moving on a page.
And then in the very first round, you draw only with your non-dominant hand.
So you draw.
What you're doing with your dominant hand.
Well, we don't want to know.
We don't ask questions that can can draw.
So you draw the negative space and what's everything around the model.
And then between each instruction, the models are are moved into a new pose.
So sometimes they'll slink into the split.
Sometimes they'll put their legs up over their heads in time with lo-fi beats to the live DJ.
Do you have any lo-fi beats on
tap?
So bar owners are saying that these new drawing nights are obviously good for business, especially.
This is a pretty critical time in all seriousness.
It's a pretty critical time, especially in Washington, D.C.
for the restaurant industry because of the amount of troops.
I could just imagine
some bars in the Northwoods doing this on a
Thursday.
The
model's
probably different, but it would still, it would be very exciting.
During snowmobiling season.
During
snowmobiling season or deer, deer widow's weekend.
Wow.
Okay.
This is, this is something.
But it
may make me try to become an artist.
I've always been horrible at drawing, except for a few.
I could always draw that looked realistic
now so far a lot of the people who have attended these events across the country again mostly in DC have been younger most of them younger than most of them younger than 40 and they were they described themselves as hobby artists that's what they said and you know they're fast-paced that's what you tell that's what I tell
my wife when I
go listen
honey
I'm a Harvey artist.
I'm
going to King Can Draw tonight.
I'm going to King Can Draw.
I have to express my art.
I
must draw.
Up at Uncle.
You can stay home and
draw me or
the dogs.
No.
I'm not that much into
that.
No, I'm going to Uncle Bucks over in the Northwoods up there for a beer and for snowmobiles.
Stella got off her sled.
For King Can Draw.
Stripped
down out of her coveralls and I'm going to draw her in her drawers.
This is a thing happening.
I
can't wait.
Listen, we'll do it.
I'm going to put
this out there, Jamie.
You can talk to the students about
it later.
We'll do a live broadcast
if your bar
or restaurant is doing a kink-a-draw and Parker
will model.
Parker will model.
As long as
we don't livestream the video.
No, there'll just be
still
photos.
Artistic.
Artistic
stills.
If we stream it, then that becomes a whole different level of streaming at civic media.
And yes, Parker, we will use
a zoom lens to not embarrass
you.
Wink, wink.
You know
what I'm talking about.
As long as
it's warm in there.
Yeah, you got to be careful where you put the model right by
the door in the winter
or you
know, I wouldn't work at Uncle Bucks in the north woods during snowmobiling season No, you got to put one of those
extra doors on there a little foyer so that people come in because once that cold that once that Arctic air blows in you know, unless Stella is still modeling
it doesn't
matter
Can you imagine walking down Main Street seeing Uncle Bucks and you look in the window just
There's
a kink and draw happening.
There's a kink and draw going on there.
Somebody's like on the table, just to the low, low beats and grow.
Would you like some low beats?
I would like some low five beats.
I've got some low five beats for you.
Oh, there we go.
Oh,
very nice.
Very
nice.
It's putting us
into the kink and draw mood.
Time for kink and draw.
Can you move your head just a little bit to the left?
Not that
much.
All right,
perfect.
Would Bob Ross approve of this?
That's my question.
Well, they're happy,
all right.
They're happy
little
birds, flying out of happy little trees and bushes.
Oh, wow.
And just enjoying themselves.
I do abstract naked art.
I
never draw the head because I'm not good at faces.
Oh, PBS could not approve of this, of the lo-fi beats in Bob Ross.
I, man.
All right.
Can you draw people?
It's a new thing.
Somebody could spy.
Some
kick and draw could sponsor the program.
We're always looking to
expand our new
friends, let's say,
expand the horizons.
Yes.
All right.
Well, listen, this has been soothing and erotic at the same time.
We hope we send you off into your day with a new appreciation of the arts.
That's our goal.
We want you to appreciate the arts here on the Civic Media Network.
I'm done.
We're
done.
Thank you
for listening.
Thank you for being part of the program.
I'm Brian Noonan.
I'm Jamie Mark.
