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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 Jamie.
much for joining us this
We had so many suitcases and everything was full because what you forget is when you're doing a basically an eight day trip, it requires a lot, especially when you need to carry on so that you can do air travel.
And then you have to come back and you have to have like the big suitcase for all the meetings and all of that.
So no, nobody got souvenirs, including us, which was.
which was sad and a little depressing.
But we did get good memories, so that's good.
But no, it was a whirlwind trip.
It literally started last Saturday morning, so a week ago over the weekend.
We flew out of Minnesota, and then we ended up after a 14 hour travel day.
Let me tell you, 14 hours of air travel.
Yes, yes, this is exactly.
Now, what I love about this trip is my husband decided that he was going to, because he didn't want to deal with the crowds because of how early we had to leave.
So he's like, all right, let's just fly out of Rochester.
Now, the best part about this is, is when he looked at the, when he looked at the drive time of getting from our house to the Rochester airport, he's like, oh, it's going to be about three hours.
Well, of course he did it during rush hour.
It's like two.
So he has us out of the house at 6 a.m.
for a 10 a.m.
1030 flight, right?
So we get to the Rochester Airport, we're driving, and he says to me as we're driving, check the parking at the Rochester Airport.
And I said, it's the Rochester Airport.
It's not gonna be that big.
Well, you aren't gonna just pull up to the front door.
Turns out at the Rochester Airport, you do pull up to the front door and you take six steps to get inside.
So then we spent- But where do
It's one big parking lot.
It's literally six steps from the front door, which is crazy.
And when you get in, there's literally five gates.
That's it.
All on one level.
I think there was an upstairs for gates one and two, but the gate we needed was on the main level.
So we sat at the bar.
He had a lovely morning drink after he realized that his license was expired and then had to renew it sitting at the bar.
Turns out that if your license expires, you can fly on it for two years.
They checked.
Yes, two years.
We checked into it.
You can fly with an expired license for two years, folks.
Just a little tip.
It seems safe.
We were surprised.
But in the state of Wisconsin, you can renew your license online.
So he did that sitting at the bar enjoying a very early morning drink.
We got on our nice flight to Minneapolis where we had a three and a half hour layover.
And then finally we were able to travel.
It was a 14 hour day before we got to Boston late on Saturday night.
In fact, he looked at me and goes,
do you want
go to
Unfortunately, with the way air travel is right now, with a lot of the places we've had to go recently, we haven't had a choice.
Layovers were literally
our
only option.
But we had a lovely time on Mother's Day in Boston.
Got to see so many of the historic sites.
And I mean, this was a whirlwind tour, right?
Like we had a day and a half before meetings and things.
And then before we had to fly out on Tuesday, but we got to see a lot of the city.
I was, I was excited about that.
Boston is just one of those great East Coast cities.
It's got that big city vibe, but it's, it's a lot more laid back than like in New York, right?
So I, I can always, I can always get into Boston.
Super.
A
of my life.
So there's that part of it.
Had our meetings on Tuesday and then we got back on a plate Tuesday afternoon, flew back to Rochester on Tuesday night.
Rochester.
Yes.
And we got back to Rochester about 1130.
Then we had to turn around and drive back to Minneapolis where we had already had a layover.
And then we got to the hotel about 1230 and our next conference for the big deals program.
all of these really great certificates that you can buy at a discount throughout the Civic Media Network.
Check the app, by the way.
We had a convention for that for a couple of days, saw some folks from the Civic Network, saw some folks that we just have known for a really long time at this convention, so it was good to be in Minneapolis.
Had a nice boat trip one night for the little bit of a fun mixer with a live band, so we got to do
and all of that on a boat, and it was a gorgeous night on the Mississippi River in St.
Paul, before the wind kicked up the next day.
And then we got done with the convention Thursday at around 11.30, and we got in the car and we drove to Ely, Minnesota, because for a really long time we've been trying to put a big FM signal on the air, and they finally got some antenna bays, so watch for more news if you are a fan of...
of Ely Minnesota Radio.
And hello, anytime you wake up on a Saturday to polka hour, it's a good day.
Now what I will say is that the trip ended with me having the stomach flu and having to drive home like that on Friday, on Saturday.
And my husband is also sick.
To fly out of Rochester, literally, to fly from Rochester to Minneapolis to Boston saved us almost $150 per person per leg of the trip.
If we would have just gone to Minneapolis and then it was going to be almost $1,500 per person to fly from Minneapolis to Boston.
By taking the Rochester route, we were able to save about $150 to $200 per person, per leg.
That is how air travel is right now.
If you have to travel book early, that would be... And this one was one that we tried to book early.
The Boston trip was business meetings, essentially why we were there.
So that kept getting moved by the people we were meeting with on their end.
So we couldn't just lock in a date and we couldn't just say, this is when we're going because we had to wait on their schedule.
I was angry.
I said, listen on the radio once in a while, you know, sit, sit outside or take a drive, listen to the game.
It is, it really kicks up your imagination.
And you, depending on how good the announcers are and the brewers have a great radio team, you're going to get the picture anyway.
It's, it's terrific.
So, yeah.
And I got to text a little bit during the game to my good friend, Frank,
All right, Parker, Jamie, did you experience the mezzo-scale convective vortex yesterday?
I figured Jamie would know what this is.
Dane County experienced a mezzo-scale convective vortex yesterday morning that triggered phone alerts according to a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Weather was bad across the center.
from going from the Southwest to the Northeast and Wisconsin weather was really, really bad yesterday.
And we've already had thunderstorms this morning, very warm, very humid today.
But in case you're wondering, if you saw those alerts on your phone yesterday, a mesoscale convective vortex is this low pressure center that pulls winds into a pattern that almost looks tornadic because they start circulating.
And so.
So they issued a tornado warning because of that yesterday.
And if you were sitting at home going, what is happening?
Not much as it turns out.
The sirens went off, you had all the alerts on the phone.
There was a little bit of wind and then a whole lot of rain for, I don't know, about five minutes or so.
And then within about an hour, hour and a half, the sun came out.
And
then,
anything too bad.
I will say though that all of the travels we've had across the state over the last few days.
Holy buckets, are we lucky to have the moisture we have here in this portion of the state compared to what they're dealing with in the north?
It is bone dry up there.
Bone dry.
Like, scarily so, especially with the fact that, you know, camping season and boating season and people are starting to come into the area.
It is
So the trees are just starting to bud up there when you're walking around Ely.
There is absolutely no leaves yet on trees because it was so cool.
In fact, when we left the other day, it was going to be a high of 58.
Nice.
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Wisconsin wakes up here.
Back to Daybreak with Brian and
I'm Brian Noonan.
If you want to get involved with us, 855-755-CIVIC-855-752-4842.
How worried are you about measures by this administration to affect elections?
Jamie, I know you were in one of the hotbeds of democracy, one of the birthplaces of our nation last week, but the foolishness continues everywhere else.
I don't know how it was playing in Boston, but here in Wisconsin.
A lot of it did not play well.
Well, this isn't going to play well either.
The Trump administration has run millions of voter registrations through government databases to determine their eligibility.
Now, it's a process that critics are worrying could end up purging valid voters from the rolls before the November elections.
And I'm going to wager a guess that that doesn't matter to the administration.
Only the right people need to vote right at least 67 million registrations primarily from Republican controlled states have gone through a beefed up verification program at the US Department of Homeland Security.
Tens of thousands of those have been flagged as potential non-citizens or people have died.
Now some states allow only a month for people to prove their eligibility and others suspended immediately.
The scanning of state voter rolls at the national level is part of a broader plan and we've been talking about this for, well, the last year or so.
by the Republicans to federalize certain election functions and promote the messaging that elections are marred by non citizen voting, even though instances of that are rare.
Voting and civil rights advocates say the DHS system is error prone and can mistakenly flag people who are eligible to vote.
It already has flagged people mistakenly.
And this is once again between this and the gerrymandering man.
You you realize how terrified this guy is of what will happen if the Democrats take control of the house He knows it's not and and at this point it's not about his policies It's not about anything to do with the good of the country because as he said last week he doesn't think about Americans financial situation at all This is about he knows at some point.
He's gonna be brought up on legit charges and he is
They're the question of all the money that he has made over the last year.
The question of everything else is going to come into play.
If the Democrats take control, he will be impeached and this time he probably will be convicted if the Senate flips too.
That's all he's worried about.
So whatever they can do to ensure their victory, they are doing and it is, it's brazen.
And nobody's doing anything to stop
No, and I mean all of this is happening against a backdrop
that we've already lived through and have been living through for multiple years.
The 2020 election was one of the most scrutinized in history, including here in Wisconsin.
And I'm sure you talked about it, but just last week, let's remind anybody who wasn't able to join.
There were reports of federal agents showing up at the home of a Milwaukee County election official from the FBI.
And so as we're watching that play out, this is, as you mentioned, a nationwide effort.
And essentially this comes down
to the Republican Party trying to erode trust in our election process, because it's not just about the ballots.
We need as voters to be able to know that the system works.
And when election officials feel targeted, or when voters hear about these mass checks that can mistakenly flag eligible voters,
It starts to create doubt and that doubt is going to start spreading quickly.
And, you know,
It was even before his first election.
It was if I don't win, it's rigged.
If I don't win, it's rigged.
And you keep pounding on something so long, there's enough because other than the hanging chads, do you remember, you know, there were, there were close elections.
There were blowout, blowout elections and people just.
If they lost, they lost.
You know, they challenged the Chad one because that was a little different.
But then, even then, once it was over, Al Gore's still not complaining about losing
No, that went all the way to the Supreme Court, right?
He was able to accept the results and step back.
I think the thing that bothers me the most about this is the election workers, because these are local folks.
These are people you know.
These are people who probably have kids in your kid's school, probably shop at the same grocery store.
You know these people because they're part of your community.
And they're not usually in the spotlight, and they're responsible for
making sure that these elections on a local level are run fairly.
and accurately.
So if they feel intimidated or they feel like they're being pressured, I think this is going to make it much harder to recruit and retain people willing to do that work.
And I think that is also part of what is motivating this particular Republican Party right now, because they want to erode that type of trust throughout the communities.
And we've seen them do it, right?
We've seen them do it all the way from mayoral elections, especially if you're watching in Wisconsin, just this
past election cycle all the way into the school boards.
They're eroding that trust every single time there's
An issue.
Citizenship and Immigration Services said the 60 million voter registration checks identified about 24,000 potential non-citizens.
The Attorney General who runs the Justice Department Civil Rights Division said during a Fox News interview those checks also identified about 350,000 people who appear to have died, but that is a fraction of 1% of the voters.
Yeah.
We would have to have people, reporters who called him out on his BS, and we would have to have people on the Republican voter side who were
not just believing what they're being told, who actually listened to everybody and looked at the court cases and said, you know what, he's wrong about this.
This is not what's happening.
Um, the Republicans said something the other day at a water park, and I'm wondering if the Democrats should follow their advice.
I know that sounds outrageous.
This is Daybreak.
I'm Brian Noonan.
Want to join in on the conversation?
Call or text 855-75-CIVIC.
Now back to Brian and Jamie.
We hope you are having a great start to your morning, a warm, muggy day across most of the state, and maybe some rain, some thunderstorms once again.
Hopefully, hopefully though, the weather will behave itself, and hopefully, we'll talk about it a little later on this morning, but hopefully the Northwoods will see a little moisture at some point too, because boy, they could definitely use it up there.
to
But we definitely, we're lucky in this part of the state because obviously we've had so much flooding.
We don't need more flooding, but we're lucky to see the rain that we have when you look at what's happening in the Northwoods in comparison.
A lot of you right now are like, Brian, did you hit your head over the weekend?
Perhaps I did, but that's really none of your concern.
8-5-5-7-5-CIVIC, 8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2, because this is, I am in bizarro world, Jamie, because I'm thinking about listening to Republicans and taking their advice.
And Ron Johnson made a comment that I went,
All right, we could transfer this over to the Democrats.
It's it's good political advice.
But why I'm telling you this and why we're going to talk about this is Ron Johnson said that and other party leaders were appealing for unity.
as they gathered Saturday for their state convention.
They were up there at Kalahari Resort, so I am picturing Ron Johnson and Derek Van Orden and all the other Republicans with their skinny white legs shooting down waterslides, yipping it up, having a good time, maybe getting, you know, one of those big Kalahari elephant necklaces to wear around, just having a good time.
But they warned Republicans warned against voter enthusiasm and that that
lack of enthusiasm could have dire consequences.
Oh, I don't think voters are lacking in enthusiasm for this election, Ron.
I think the enthusiasm, though, is coming against you and the Republicans.
But that's just me.
What do I know?
The midterm elections are going to be tight.
We know a lot of 14.
I think we voted or counted it last.
14 Republicans have decided to retire or not seek re-election.
Good news to their families.
They're all going to spend more time with their families.
Quality time, Jamie.
That's
That's it.
It's a fun water park.
And in the Republican's defense, the Democrats did have their convention in Wisconsin Dells last year.
This year, I believe it's in Madison, but last year they also did have theirs at one of the resorts.
What I thought was most interesting, because I did listen to a lot of Ron Johnson's comments, what I thought was interesting is he talked about how the
Democrats always unify around their candidate.
What?
Which I thought was insanity, because going back to 2016, 2020, 2024, they don't actually
Yes, which is why I'm saying we need to take Ron Johnson's advice.
We don't, we don't unify.
Right.
We can't get behind.
Oh,
right.
I'm gonna laugh this way.
Hillary this, Bernie this.
Unless you're perfect.
Right.
The Democrats will fraction off.
Well, I'd rather not vote, or I'd rather vote for Jill Stein as a protest vote.
Hey, hey, how'd those protest votes work out for you last time, friends?
So let's take a little bit of Ron Johnson's advice, Democrats.
And once the primaries are over, I don't care who that nominee is.
That's your nominee.
Inside your case, that's not going to be very effective.
Okay?
Not at all.
In addition to the relentlessness of the left and the effective infiltration of these institutions, you know what the left is really good at?
Completely being unified.
Because, because what motivates
Again, we're a bunch of free agents, right?
We're a bunch of entrepreneurs.
We have a bunch of goals, a bunch of aspirations.
We don't want to be involved in government.
So again, we just don't have that cohesive chromosome, I guess.
But if we're going to win, we've got to unify.
And we've got to unify now.
We we have no room for division We have no room for this first circular firing squad, which we are very good at end it end it now
to
We ate something so we can't go back in the pool for 30 minutes.
So we might as well listen to Ron Johnson partificate.
Did he go to the Donald Trump School of Speech Writing?
Because there were a lot of inaccuracies in that little clip.
And that clip was only a little over a minute.
And there were a number of inaccuracies.
And I think he was also referring to the voters because earlier in that particular speech, he goes on to talk about the lack of enthusiasm for the recent Supreme Court races and how they only had 35% of Republican turnout in just this past couple of, in this last month or so between Chris Taylor and Maria Lazar.
And let's be clear, Chris Taylor didn't actually, Democrats didn't actually turn out in huge
numbers in this particular race either.
It was pretty mild across the board, but for Republicans to only get 35% of their voters out to the polls in that Supreme Court election, especially when we were talking about all of the school referendums also on the ballot across the state.
It was a big sticking point for Ron Johnson and a majority of his speech in Wisconsin Dells over the weekend.
Maria Lazar kind of disappeared from the campaign.
There were some missteps.
She was out.
She was gone.
Chris Taylor was out there pounding the pavement and and people were Democrats were more motivated.
I think there was there's
there are real stakes involved in some of these elections.
And to be honest, some of the things that Republicans run their Supreme Court candidates on are not things that the majority of the public are behind.
You can be a conservative and still be pro-choice.
You can be a conservative and still want schools funded.
And it's unfortunate that we have Supreme Court justices who are
party affiliated, which they really shouldn't be, but that's another story.
Then you get tarnished, you get painted with the whole brush of the Republican Party.
Alicia chiming in over on our YouTube chat this morning, she says, Republicans aren't cohesive.
They literally follow lockstep behind the president.
Yes.
Yes.
That's absolutely 100% true.
If you want to chime in this morning, 1-855-752-4842-185575 Civic.
I think the thing that bothers me most about both parties is these
the growing influence of the extremes, because both the Republicans
and the
You've got louder, more hardline voices on both ends of the spectrum.
And oftentimes, we've seen this happen time and again, those voices overshadow the center, the center left, the center right voters, who make up a huge portion of who actually votes and how most people believe, especially in states like Wisconsin.
And when...
Governing requires compromise, right?
And it requires...
of the
Even so, you know, Bernie Sanders was the closest that we got.
Now, the middle of the Democratic Party, the more moderate part, is being viewed as not radical enough.
The problem is the Democrats will not, well, I shouldn't say will not.
Democrats have not.
rallied around, we saw what happened with Bernie, we see any time there's a candidate that, I go back to this a lot, and you do too, the purity test.
And I don't think a far, far left Democrat at this point, unfortunately, will get the
get the back in which they should if they're whoever it is i don't care where they fall in line if they're and i'm not talking about a john fetterman democrat
He says, except the extreme on the left wants health care and good education.
The extreme on the right want the handmade stale.
And I think that's just it.
And I don't know if the messaging around universal health care, for instance, has been as good as it could for some of those rural voters to really understand what that means, especially when the message
from the Republicans to counter that is always so much stronger, right?
I mean, it is.
not just the extreme left aren't the only ones pushing for healthcare and good education that's the whole democratic party the problem with the far extreme left is that they start getting into things that are more moderate that you can't reach out to
Rural voters are independence and we know already 65% of independence have not decided who they're gonna vote for in the primary So you got to reach those people and you have to realize in a pie in the sky Leftist progressive world some of these policies make sense, but in the real world they don't fly and if that makes me Old or a sellout whatever it is.
I also am a realist and I say all right.
Yes.
What's most important?
healthcare, education, taking care of the elderly, taking care of food, homelessness.
That's the most important part.
Some of this other identity stuff, identity politics, we don't need it.
We don't need to worry about it right now.
We gotta win first, work on other stuff second.
I don't know.
That's just me.
Who knows?
We're gonna take a...
Quick break.
When we come back, Jamie, this is a story we followed last week when you were not here.
A giant bird has been found in return.
This is Daybreak on The Civic
Media.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
Local news, community stories, and the conversations that matter most.
Now, more Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Joining us, if you're in Madison listening on WMDX and WASA listening on WXCO or in Wisconsin Rapids on WFHR, we are certainly glad that you decided to join the Civic Media Network this morning.
My name is Jamie Martenson.
skies and not for a vortex, not for some meteorological nightmare, not UFOs, but an African stork was loose.
and flying around Wisconsin it was terrifying to the pictures made if this thing landed in your yard or came down we also mentioned we were happy you were not here during this incident because you would have never left any you would
And it's been taken to Safari and Lake Geneva.
Jay Christie, who's the owner and founder of Safari Lake Geneva, said the Marabou stork walked into a residential garage.
A man, a man, and you're sitting in your garage, watching the Brewers game.
And all of a sudden, this giant African stork comes strolling in.
What's up?
I don't know if Marabou Storks eat brats, but I'd offer him one.
So walked in, they were able to get him in some sort of a cage on a truck.
Wow.
I'm, first of all, I'm a little suspicious of anybody who's got a giant cage on a truck just sitting in their garage, just waiting.
What do you use that for, friend?
Oh, nothing.
Never
You never know when a giant.
Glad I had it now, aren't you?
Well, no, Bob, you're freaking me out, really.
You drive around in a cage like you're collecting children or other animals.
So the bird is now in quarantine and being examined by staff.
Wisconsin residents had reported seeing the bird in the Fond du Lac, Sheboygan, Appleton, and Green Bay areas between May 4th and 8th.
So Maribou Storks, which we talked about last week, are from sub-Saharan Africa.
And there's virtually zero chance the bird flew over.
the continent.
So the question does remain.
Where
do make them believe that the stork was in human care at some point well duh because storks are putting their own metal bands on it's not like they're going to the mall to beclares to get pierced or to get a hey put a put a cool ankle bracelet
on me all
right how about something for that giant beak no no
This speaks for itself.
on the
said bird.
That is
Stay
over there.
Don't land near me.
Do you know that when we were sitting in Boston Common the other day, not only did I have pigeons at my feet, but a squirrel jumped up on the bench eating a pretzel right next to me.
I
about lost my mind.
You snow white.
I lost my flipping mind.
No, the furthest thing from it, and I scared them all because I started screaming.
Network.
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