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This is where Wisconsin wakes up.
It's Daybreak with Brian Noonan and Jamie Martinson.
Here are your hosts, Brian and
And you're
And got a lot of great suggestions from folks about where some specific places to host a bachelor party in Wisconsin.
So he is he got really good advice.
If you get to a certain age, pardon me, and your parents are a certain age, you kind of take over the role as caregiver.
And I'm kind of at that point with my mom, where now we've been told by assisted living that she has to move into a long term nursing facility.
I've never done this before, obviously.
If you have moved your parents into a nursing home, what did you look for when you were going there?
You know, she doesn't have, like, skilled medical needs, she doesn't have feeding tubes or any of that kind of stuff.
But yeah, so this is the newest project that consumes
The I have either this show that I'm working on or I'm trying to figure out right nursing homes, which is
And
No, especially, well, the Medicare one especially alerts you right away if there have been complaints against the facility.
So that's gone.
Those are gone first.
Sure.
Anything average or below average, I kick out.
So then it gets to
And they it's surprised they do kind of they do kind of balance out the US news and work because they give you know their awards and their certifications Because I stay away from like Yelp reviews
right there's always yelp is always disgruntled whether it's restaurants right or nursing
Like the server didn't bring me enough biscuits or the server didn't give up to give me water when I needed it.
Okay.
Well, maybe it was a really busy time that you were in there.
Maybe you should just be.
I mean, like, I get it.
You're paying for it, but at the same time, you know what?
Our service industry, they don't exactly have it easy.
So I take some of those.
reviews with a grain of
reservation you just had to wait shocking wow shocking so yeah so that's what i'm i'm doing the same thing but with a place with nursing home my mom to live and it's like
Oh boy.
And then how do you have that conversation right with her?
It's the whole thing because I am not going back to Magnum Force and a man's got to know his limitations.
I know I am a good problem solver,
but I am
You know, I'm empathetic.
I just I'm like a lot of people I want to solve the problem right and some problems you cannot solve.
And that's the frustrating part.
It's not, oh, I'm frustrated because I have to take care of somebody.
It's frustrating because I can't help enough.
I can't get the job done.
And when they're still sharp enough to be able to make those decisions and be involved in those conversations, it makes it doubly hard because they feel like, at least in cases we've had in our family,
it always to that person always felt like you were trying to take things away from them and and you
didn't
be
And then to think of it in your own terms of your own life, it's a conversation, Cory and I actually have often because we're at our late 40s, we have no plans.
We have absolutely no plans of what's gonna happen to us.
And we have two boys who at some point are probably gonna have to make decisions for us.
And I've seen their empathy.
I don't even wanna know
what's gonna happen to us if
decisions for us but you know and then you toss in the fact that in where we're at right now facilities are not
We don't have a plethora of them really anywhere for for patients like your mom We don't have a plethora of doctors the cost for families is so astronomical Then you have to start making choices of do you want to?
Essentially take the care that might be better here with a little better review But at the same time it's really really spendy and nobody wants to be put into that situation when you're talking about a loved one, right?
You just you don't want to be there
it's right and some you know
circle and some a lot of people can't take somebody into their house especially when they have advanced needs right but yeah I I am so grateful that my mom and dad went into education because back in the day
They got good pensions.
Sure.
And that's and my mom still gets my dad's pension from the board too.
So I'm like, man, I should have thought of
States
So I know there's a lot of companies, you know, because at one point in time, you got your pen, your gold watch, you retired, you got your pension, that's what people lived for, right?
Now in 2026, you're like,
All right, we don't have to pay this person anymore.
They're off the payroll.
Now we can take that salary and divide it among three different people because that's where we're at in the
It's amazing now everybody is supposed to be a financial advisor of their own future.
Whereas back in the day, like you said, you put in 30, 40 years at a company, you retired, you got a pension.
And that's how the system was.
Now it's like, if you don't start planning when you're
24 at your first job and setting up all sorts of, yeah, you're late, Parker.
I'm in shambles.
There is nothing that...
nothing that's going to save you.
That's horrifying.
It's so sad, Parker.
But yeah, it's it's amazing.
It's amazing how things change and just everybody's life evolves.
And again, my life is not unique.
That's why I was reaching out.
But it's just one of those one of those hurdles you get to.
And then I, you know,
Now I'm like, oh, what's Molly going to do with me?
congestive
failure.
She lives on a fixed income, which is essentially my dad's social security, which isn't a lot.
And pretty much all goes to rent and utilities.
And there's not always a lot of room left at the end of the day for all of the medicine she needs.
And yes, she
But we know how that's changed over the course of the last few months, slash years.
And then also, by the way, you have to have some food in there too.
And so I understand this circle quite well because we go through it ourselves.
very, very frequently.
And my mom is one of those people, I don't know how your mom is, but my mom is one of those people where she'll basically be completely out of money and she'll call and say, I don't know what to do, but I didn't want to bother you.
And you just know how busy you are.
No, no, no, no, no.
See, you should have bothered me because we couldn't handle
This is the Civic Media Network.
Local voices and statewide impact.
It's Daybury with Brian and Jamie.
this
It's
What are your feelings about the Supreme Court ruling yesterday cutting basically killing the voters right at voters rights act eight five five seven five civic eight five five seven five two four eight four two Jamie you we joke here about gerrymandering being one of your favorite things and it's not the gerrymandering is not your favorite thing but you do like talking about it and dissecting it and we've we saw this battle start
a little above a couple months ago when Donald Trump was telling states they need to redraw their maps and Texas to redrew their map and then California threatened to redraw their map and here in Wisconsin, we've been dealing with this issue for a long time about gerrymandering and redistricting and all of this.
I never thought I would see the Supreme Court overturn the Voters' Rights Act, which basically
kills the hope of a lot of voters, especially in southern states, where gerrymandering against even one district has been going on for decades.
And for anybody who wants to stay with us throughout the morning or can, we're going to actually have an expert join us at 7.30.
And we're going to dive into this a little bit more with him, get a little history on this as well.
You're right.
I mean, it feels very much like... We've talked about this with the Supreme Court, right?
It feels like when they do one thing correctly, they're gearing us up for something even bigger that...
they're preparing to undo.
We've seen this throughout the Trump administration.
We saw this even during Joe Biden's term, where it felt like every time they give us a little win, that means there's something much bigger coming down the pike.
And this
is one
Essentially, what happened is they tossed out Louisiana's long contested congressional map as an unconstitutional gerrymander.
And this is, as a decision, as you rightly pointed out, Brian, that could have implication for years, not to mention the fact in the midterm elections coming up in just a few months.
Now, for Louisiana,
This decision scraps the map that was drawn in early 2024 and added a second black and democratic lawmaker to the state's overwhelming Republican delegation.
And just a second one,
we've seen
And I think when you look at what happened yesterday,
The timing is probably...
the most suspect thing to me in all of this because it wasn't random.
This wasn't done randomly by any means.
This was essentially done at the time it was to make sure that the Republican party has an upper leg, especially in large portions of this country in the midterm elections, because the one thing that they do not want to have happen is people to vote and be able to have their vote counted in a fair way.
That has been an ongoing battle.
with this party.
get a
or
But my question, and we'll talk to our expert later is, where does this end?
Right?
Because, all right, you start seeing it across the south.
And again, it's not, they're not taking away a lot of representatives.
It's not like there's a lot of representatives from the South anyway, but they're going to try to get rid of all of them.
This is why gerrymandering is a pet project of mine because and why I hate it so much because of exactly what we're talking about.
And back to your point, one of the things that I think worries me the most is when we look at the midterms, we've seen several of these Republican states who have Republican governors, state houses, state senates, state Supreme courts, all under Republican control.
When you have that, the thing that worries me the most is how quickly will they be able to push something through if they really, really want it to happen.
And that's what terrifies me about November, because I will...
There's a part of me that believes some of these Republican states have had these plans drawn up in the background, just
hoping,
Lake Superior to Lake Michigan.
This is Wisconsin's Morning Conversation.
Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
My wife told me,
the dogs needed company.
So now we've always had two dogs.
And they don't care about each other.
There's a nice level of dog day tunt.
They coexist nicely.
They're both seniors at this point.
The one will just look at me like, why is she making that noise?
this
The
the Beagle facility that, you know, raises them for experiments and medical treatments and things.
They've reached an agreement to sell a substantial majority of their Beagles to rescue organizations instead of research buyers.
Hopefully that will make some of the people who are protesting happy that would, you know, okay, now the now the problem is, you've got they're going to sell about 1000 to 1500 dogs out of about the 200 that they have.
I listen, I've never claimed to be a mathematician.
So about 1000 dogs are expected to go right to rescue care.
The others will be sent to shelters across the country.
Now you have to worry.
Okay, you've got these.
thousand fifteen hundred dogs you got to get them to shelters that are no kill you got to hope they get adopted there's you know
there's
Now, here's a fun little tidbit of information that I found while doing a little research.
Laura Trump, the president's daughter-in-law, is actually a director of the Big Dog Ranch Rescue.
Really?
She is, yes.
The actual owner and founder of Big Dog Ranch Rescue.
I believe there might be, it sounds like maybe this
is a rescue that has several across the country in different locations is from Florida and Laura Trump is.
basically a board a member of the board of directors for for which I find fascinating.
She's obviously an animal.
I hope this is actually
And the big dog ranch is going to have a press conference later today in Madison to talk about this because to your point, Brian, about a thousand of those dogs are going to go directly to rescue care.
Some others will be sent to partner shelters, partner shelters across the country.
But one of the things that the ranch has already talked about is the rehabilitation process that's going to go
into
They don't
know how to be dogs.
They literally don't know how to walk on anything but a wired kennel.
And they've never been, a lot of times had human touch other than when people have been running experiments on them.
They haven't been vetted.
in any way, shape, or form.
So they're going to have to go through the entire vetting process.
Now, I also found it interesting that the facility actually is set to shut down their breeding operations on July 1st.
And that comes after a legal settlement in 2025 that allowed the facility to avoid prosecution if it gives up its Wisconsin license.
But despite that closure, the facility is still legally allowed to operate and sell dogs to research.
labs until that July 1 deadline.
So there's still, which is why the assumption is that they're going to keep a few hundred of those dogs available because they still will be able to operate as a research facility until July 1.
And it's, it's one of those unfortunate situations.
And we've talked about this before on, on the air.
Um, you know, it's, this is one of those things where
dozens of protesters broke into a private entity and you know and and there's been legal action against them which then they sued the Dane County Sheriff's Department because they're saying that that action that Dane County took was too aggressive you know and then we get I know I know you broke into a private facility I mean there's still laws and still rules.
I understand how
It's going to be fascinating to see if, with this July 1st deadline coming up, because we know that there was protest just as late as late March.
There was some more, again, over this past weekend, to the point where then protesters ended up sitting in front of Tony Evers' office asking him to do something.
They are doing something, even
if the
And again, I totally understand.
I've been involved in the rehabilitation of beagles coming out of research centers.
Um, it is not always pretty.
I, I'll just be honest.
It is no, it is so much work and it is so hard.
And if you were a dog lover, to see an animal come to you, be wrapped in a blanket, even puppies, older dogs, and to see them wrapped in a blanket and shivering and so afraid.
And just this look of.
of dejection in their faces.
That is, if you're an animal lover, that is one of the most heartbreaking things you can possibly go through.
And the fact that they've never had human attention and when you get one of these dogs in your arms, which I've had and they're wrapped in a blanket and you want to.
to let them know it's okay for them to stiffen up in your arms because they've never felt that type of affection.
It is heartbreaking.
So I understand that you want this timeline sped up, but they're doing what they can.
Nothing goes
I always tell friends who have will say it's not moving fast enough Well, yes, it's not an all it's not an episode of law and order.
It's just not right like it's we don't solve everything in 45 minutes, right, right, but
But keep an eye on this one because there is light at the end of the tunnel.
We are going to see some of these beagles make their way into shelters, be rehabbed, eventually probably find some really loving homes.
And at the end of the day, that's the most that you can hope for, right?
I mean, that's
All the time.
Just to reset.
Breaking news.
All right, there we go.
State Senator Andre Jacques not seeking reelection.
He, uh, he's a new Franken Republican.
He says he is not running for another term.
Have you been keeping a tally board, Jamie, of how many Republicans in Wisconsin have decided for one reason or another?
starting at the top with Robin Voss are not seeking reelection.
Five or six, and it depends if you're looking at what house because some houses have stepped back, members of each house are missing certain members a little bit more.
So I can do a quick tally during the commercial break, but that's easy to find.
But it's interesting how quickly these
these resignations are coming right now.
Yeah,
he was in, if you're not familiar with Andre Jacques, he spent eight years in the assembly before being elected to the first district in the state Senate in 2019.
So he's been along.
He is not, he, now, all right, let me play this game with you.
Jamie, is he leaving to spend more time with family?
Is A, is B, to pursue other interests, or C, undisclosed?
I do have the list here of people who have decided to step down at this point, besides Andre Jacques.
Obviously, we know Assembly Speaker Robin Voss, Senate Majority Leader Devin LaMahieu are both stepping down.
We also have Steve Nass from Whitewater, Rob Hutton from Brookfield, Van Wongard from Racine, Jerry O'Connor from Fond du Lac.
We have Rob Brooks, who is also stepping down from Salkville, Kevin Peterson from Wapaka, and also at this point, Rick
Gundram from slinger.
Those are the members of the assembly or Senate who are stepping down at this point.
That is interesting because of fairer maps in the state of Wisconsin, back to that conversation, the seats were already narrowing for Republicans, Democrats were in a good spot to pick up more seats.
And so if you're keeping tabs on midterms, everyone, 10 seats up for grabs now.
But what I would say, you know, at some point you could probably say some of these were very safe Republican districts.
If you watch the results of the Supreme Court race, nothing seemed to be safe based on those results.
It's 648 right now and this is the Civic Media Network.
It's 652
Yeah, we have chasers all across the country who have been out.
They've seen some, obviously there's been some moments already this year in Oklahoma that you wish you could take back and you hate mother nature at that moment time.
There's also been some really great storms just in open fields, which is what we do on our side hustle is what we always hope some really photogenic storms that don't do any damage to anything.
Well, one storm that blew through Derby, Kansas on Saturday night did a lot of damage at the Field Station dinosaurs theme park.
60 ton animatronic dinosaur was burst into flames because it was struck by lightning.
Yeah.
Yes.
Do yourself a favor.
If you've ever thought, man, I'd like to take a dinosaur at a barbecue.
I'd like to pretend I'm the Fred Flintstone and I'm
grill it up a dinosaur look for this because the derby fire department put out the video this was it is really what's more frightening is just the skeleton just still
I'm guessing there's firefighters across this country who've retired after 40 years of service never once got the All engines we have a dinosaur on fire Hopefully was there there was just it
consumed with heavy fire.
It's a three-story dinosaur.
They're able to contain the blaze and keep it from spreading to other dinosaurs and the rest of the park.
The dinosaur is the park's largest herbivore in the early Cretaceous period.
with
What I love is how what a good sense of humor the fire department had about this because on their Facebook page they said that this is the first dinosaur fire Derby has experienced in 65 million years.
So in the heart of all of this I'm glad that somebody has a sense of humor but if you watch the video you almost expect this moment if you're a Jurassic Park fan of Jeff Goldblum just walking out of the smoke and parting the way
of it because it is it is that the video is that crazy
There's no big... Oh, yes.
Well, actually, a lot of those Wizard of Oz, interestingly enough, I'm sure there are some in Kansas.
I've never been.
Some of the biggest Wizard of Oz places that you can visit, a lot of them are in Oklahoma because I think people equate that to tornadoes more, which I think is also fascinating.
Yeah, but Kansas is
Exactly.
I'm trying to, I'm on a map here looking to see, so Derby, Kansas, let's see, oh boy, it is, it is basically, it would be north and a little west of Tulsa, that would be the closest major town next to it.
And just south, I guess, actually there we go, zooming in on my map as it comes into focus, just south of Wichita.
So it's kind of situated in that area, but really, I
repealed to me because it's what I grew up with.
I saw it all the time.
I always found it fascinating working at the Corum Palace as a teenager in an early college when people would come from the east coast who don't have that kind of open land though and haven't grown up with it.
And they're just like, this is the most beautiful place on earth.
And I remember I'd always look around going, really?
This, this is, okay, all right, each their own.
I'm not gonna tell you what to think, it's beautiful.
The Badlands are, I will say that that is actually out of all of the things in South Dakota, the Badlands are actually my favorite part.
I really, truly do love the Badlands.
I think they're beautiful.
I think they're amazing.
If you ever get the chance to drive through there, go at sunrise or sunset, simply because the
red when the orange of the badlands picks up the colors of the sunset.
And then it almost looks like the entire earth in that section has been illuminated with an orange highlighter.
It really is the coolest thing when you get to see it up close.
It's beautiful, absolutely phenomenal.
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