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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.
I'm Brian Noonan.
Glad you're here.
If you want to get ahold of us this morning, it's easy to do 85575 Civic, 8557524842.
That'll get you either texting or calling.
And if you do call.
Be nice to Parker.
It's Friday.
The young boy needs happiness.
He couldn't even put on a regular shirt today.
He's just wearing an undershirt.
There's no doubt about it.
I've been calling you a drip since I met you
Yeah, I don't know what that meant.
All right.
Well, it is Friday.
This is exciting.
Most of us or a lot of folks, I don't know if most, a lot of folks have Monday off for Memorial Day.
And so instead of going to work, they'll sleep late to the barbecues.
Hopefully they'll take a couple seconds to realize why they have the day off.
That would be a good day.
And can we also, this every year, this gets to me.
And I don't know why.
I don't know why.
I mean, I'm not a veteran.
I didn't lose anybody in the war, but I'm a stickler for the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day.
And there's a huge difference.
Veterans Day honors all veterans, living, dead, everything.
Memorial Day is just to pay tribute to the men and women who died in service to this country.
There is a big difference.
And I think even veterans, and veterans I'd love to hear from you if this is true.
You don't want you don't want it confused either.
But people either you know because they're so they're so worried about posting something on social media to virtue signal that oh look we care about our veterans that they conflate the two and then they get all they get all snippy when you correct them and go listen and that the correction isn't to say veterans don't matter right because they do but this is this is a whole different thing.
Use Google.
Just use Google.
I mean, it will help you out so that you can find all of the mysteries of the world if you really need to know the differences.
Now, I would hope that some of us are smarter and we just know some of these things off the top of our heads.
I know
we all
Just remember what the holiday is.
I think here's the thing.
You know, and when it comes to like places, holidays like Memorial Day and Labor Day, I think the true meaning behind these holidays and these particular moments in time get lost because all everybody thinks is I have a three day weekend and it's the unofficial kickoff to summer.
That's all people are thinking about.
You forget the true meaning.
Listen.
My first thought is, oh, we don't have to work on Monday.
Now, then I'll think about why we don't have to work on Monday.
And when Molly was in high school and played in the bands, every Memorial Day there was in our little town square, like in a lot of town squares, and we're going to cover towns all across the network.
There's these ceremonies on Monday.
In ours, it was the reading of the names of the local...
people who died in service to this country and the ringing of the bell and the flag raising and stuff.
And it was always very moving.
And you, it struck me every year that we went to this, how many people there were.
And I was
like, boy, I lived in a little town.
I didn't realize that that many, that many people not only had been, I mean, you always know there's a lot of veterans out there, but that had been killed in in service to the country.
I was
All we're asking is for you to take a moment over this long three day weekend and remember why you might actually have the day off.
Remember why you're actually celebrating.
And as you mentioned, we'll talk about some of the celebrations and moments that are gonna happen across the state.
But just remember, and if you don't really know the difference, educate yourself because we all need to do that at different times about different things.
And yes.
No, we don't want to chastise anybody, but just... I
You know, let me know.
If the world goes...
more crazy on Sunday and we need to it.
Yes.
Alicia, who we know is a veteran, she messages us all the time.
She says, yes, to us, Veterans Memorial Day is very different from Veterans Day.
I assumed that, but to be honest, I knew I wasn't wrong.
Since we're talking about this, we've started the show at a different note than that I think any of us thought we were going to do.
Do veterans ever get tired of people saying thank you for your service?
Because in some cases, I, I don't know how many people actually are, but they think that's what they're supposed to say.
Right.
And, you know, while veterans have had an important job, they were, you know, I have no, this, me asking that is not shade on veterans.
I
think
But it's like, how many people say it just because they think they're supposed to say it?
Right.
And if you're a veteran and somebody finds out you're a veteran and they just say that, are you like, shut up?
Right.
Yeah.
Or do you just, well, thank you.
Because, you know,
We've seen how America treats its veterans, and it's not really with gratitude.
And yeah, and we lost, we lost his dad a few years ago to the ramifications of Agent Orange, right?
Which is not
a
story untold for Vietnam veterans and, you know, had lots of lung issues.
I ended up having to go through all of the process and the work over the years to actually get the benefits, because as you mentioned, they were treated so poorly when they came home, and those veterans missed out on a lot of medical help and mental health help.
And so we did lots of paperwork over the years to make sure that my father-in-law received some of the care, especially at the end that he deserved as a veteran, as all veterans in this country absolutely deserve.
Yeah.
I don't know.
It's interesting, but I don't know when.
I mean, at one point in this country, right?
And again, if you're a veteran listening this morning and you do want to chime in, we would actually love to hear from you.
1-855-752-4842-1855-75 Civic.
When did we quit honoring our veterans?
When do we quit honoring?
Vietnam was when it started.
we beat Hitler.
So everybody, you know, we saw, no, I mean, we saw the the way people were treated when we came home.
And there was the the VA was created and the my dad went to school on the GI Bill.
And there was, you know, there was a lot of that kind of stuff.
So I think after like I said, after World War Two, because then we got into Korea, and that's
where my
And so
But it wasn't as bad as Vietnam.
Vietnam, because everybody here had taken to the streets.
There were protests everywhere and veterans were being spit on and taunted and scorned when they came back.
And that was it.
And then there was that time, I think there was a public sentiment at some point, not for everybody, but the military used to be an alternative for some people rather than going to jail.
Judges used to sentence you to, Parker, you probably didn't know this.
But that was a thing.
If you were a delinquent, like yourself, and you got into trouble, the judge could say, well, you either go to jail or you join the army.
But it was, no, I
know that wasn't the whole case.
No, I get
it.
But it was a perception that was held by most people that it wasn't.
It wasn't the kind of career you chose, despite evidence to the contrary, from all the men and women who chose the military as a career.
Long way to answer your question.
I think it was Vietnam was when it started.
Well, if you're listening this morning, you are a veteran or you're somebody who's currently serving or you're even a family member.
Thank you for your service because you do something that the rest of us, some of us are never going to be brave enough to do.
So we appreciate all that you sacrifice.
Now, if you do want to honor some of these veterans over the course of the next few days, there are actually ceremonies happening all across the talk network.
If you are in
Madison, listening this morning on MDX.
This one's really cool.
The annual ceremony at the Wisconsin State Capitol is returning Monday morning at 10 a.m.
That's after a six-year hiatus.
So if you want to be a part of that, you can be at the Capitol.
There's also gonna be an early morning ceremony that will take place at Forest Hill Cemetery.
That's at 8 a.m.
And then a sunset memory garden will feature the Avenue of Flags.
There's gonna be thousands of flags honoring veterans in Madison.
So that's always...
a really cool site to see.
Brian and Eau Claire, there's also going to be some moments to honor the veterans.
There's going to be a Memorial Day parade.
I love a good parade.
I really, really do.
I always get excited about a parade.
That's at 9.30.
Starts at Wilson Park, ends at Owen Park.
If you're in Eau Claire, there's also going to be a formal ceremony that follows the parade at the band shell at Owen Park.
And then they're going to have some cemetery ceremonies throughout the mid morning.
as well.
But the festivities, you could say, because some of these are true celebrations put on by American legions, and that's going to happen across the state.
Wisconsin Rapids has ceremonies going on.
Wasaw is having a parade, but their parade is Saturday in downtown Wasaw.
And then the Remembrance Service is Monday at 11 o'clock.
And then La Crosse has a parade on Memorial Day flag placements and a final tribute to be held at Riverside Park.
So everywhere along the network is doing things.
And if you're up early and you can
hit one of those, it is a moving experience.
And it kind of highlights things.
Then you can go have your hamburgers and your
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started.
So I think we'll be all right.
We did, though, get some text.
We were talking about Memorial Day and the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day and all the great remembrances and ceremonies that are going to be happening over the weekend.
And we got a text.
from Tom in New Berlin.
He says Navy vet tomorrow going to place flags at Woods Memorial and a special one for my dad at WWII vet.
Also thanks for bringing up this subject while you're you're welcome Tom everybody is everybody should be thinking about it and that's
Well, it's one of the reasons we get to have a holiday.
Listen, we can all agree that sometimes things happen and they don't go our way.
Right.
And you can either accept it and let it go, or you can keep screaming about it and screaming about it, which is what Matthew and Annette Flynn are doing.
Parker, you go to the Brewers games all the time.
I've been to the Brewers games.
Do you buy tickets for the 50-50 raffle?
No, I don't.
I've never been a losing money kind of guy.
You went into radio.
That completely that completely discounts you from your last statement.
Oh God, you'd oh Yeah,
I'm sure you're world view, but
It's two bucks a ticket, right?
The people come around they go Oh, you buy this and then because you see the number on the scoreboard what you can
take home So
yeah, sometimes it's like 13 grand.
Well, that's what it was when the flins were at the game and this was
This happened in May 19th.
So an appeals court has disagreed with these poor people because what happened was they were there and they were sitting in the outfield that sounds like they were in Section 234, Row 9, seat 9.
Why is that important?
It proves that she was at the game.
The scoreboard, however, was behind her, which is one of my only...
It's most ballparks.
At Ampham, it's even harder though.
In a
the big
So anyway, that's neither here nor there.
That's a design flaw.
That's not up for argument here.
The argument is there's a rule that says if your number is called and they do it at the top of the seventh.
So that they call the number at the bottom of the six you have to the top of the seventh to get to the yes to get to the table Well, that's where the problem comes because she didn't see her number called right away Then she finds out it's her number,
Yes Well
Then she asked an usher where to go and the usher sent her down to guest services Well, that's not where she was supposed to go She had to go to she had to make it up to the 5050 table which was on the concourse Which is where she was sitting until the usher sent her down to the other place.
She got there late.
Oh No, she got to the table late.
They said sorry.
We already drew another number because you were late Wow, well instead of just being sad she got litigious
Yeah,
there there could be some sort of verbal and or not really physical abuse heaped on this usher for sending me when I could have walked three feet and bed to the right place.
But instead, they sent me downstairs who then sent me back upstairs.
And you know, those concourses are crowded.
You can't get anywhere fast.
And I think to make this worse is by the time she finally got to the table, right?
To be clear, they're suing the Brewer's Community Foundation.
But by the time she got to the table, the foundation officials told her that because she didn't get there in time, they already drew a new ticket.
Yeah.
And that person had already claimed their $13,000 prize.
So
Right and you because they do the announcements in the stadium and I get sometimes it's hard to hear I'm not saying that but they do the announcements in the stadium and you hear that they're doing the 50-50 raffle drawing and if you know where your seats are at and you know that you can't actually see a one of the big boards from where you're at but you know you bought the ticket don't you try to actually do something to see the board?
I
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Call or text 855-75-CIVIC.
Now back to Brian and Jamie.
I'm Brian Noonan.
Okay, I know it's 2026, but here's our question for you this morning.
855-757-855-752-4842.
What's your postmortem on the 2024 election?
And I know just me saying it makes me want to laugh because Jamie, you and I both know it's 2026.
Yes.
And usually a postmortem on an election, the either the national parties put those out fairly quickly.
Well, the Democrats, it'll be surprised to know when we get into some of the results.
But.
There has been a lot of anticipation for this post-mortem, the autopsy from the Democratic National Committee about the election.
What happened?
And why did we lose?
What went so wrong that got Donald Trump re-elected?
Well, the DNC Chairman Ken Martin said, oh yeah, the report's coming out.
The report's coming up.
I'm not releasing the report.
There will be no report.
Now, well, you kind of get a report, but it's an incomplete version.
And we threw a little disclaimer at the top of it when we released it
and
It's not close to it because Martin said this is not close to being ready for public consumption.
Well, dude, we got another election in two years.
So you may want to crank it up a little bit.
Well, anyway, some of it is out.
That's the disclaimer at the top.
that CNN published, said that the report reflects the views of the author, who is a Democratic consultant, Paul Rivera, not the DNC.
Rivera, who people familiar with the matter say wrote the report as a part-time volunteer.
And I understand that there's a lot of people who love to go through life that way.
But at the same time, I think at some point you have to face what went wrong.
wrong.
And as I said, I don't disagree with a lot of what Rivera had in this report because some of it didn't make sense if you were watching it from afar during the election, right?
And
for a lot
You know about the big stuff, the debates, maybe a campaign stop if it's near your home.
But for people who work in politics, you're a little bit more entrenched.
And so some of the things that I was
watching, doing what we do, I was like, why?
Some of it didn't make any sense to me.
So we can get into some of the details, though.
So overall, Jamie, and we've discussed this many times, and I think if you're an honest Democrat, this report does not paint a pretty picture for the Democratic Party.
It just says, oh, well, the elections have been very close.
And that's OK.
We don't need to.
We it's it's been close.
We don't need to rethink how we're doing it, which is they say dumb.
And I'm going to read this verbatim because this is a quote.
This kind of thinking talking about the party as a whole and their approach to elections.
quote, this kind of thinking, denialist at its core, prevents the party from seeking real accountability and from making the changes we need to deliver on our promises to the American people.
The report also went on to talk about, since Barack Obama won in 2008, which seems almost 20 years ago now, if you're doing the math at home,
It also goes on to say that the party has basically been stagnant and been in some sort of regression.
And Rivera also says that as a whole, the Democrats have steadily lost ground since President Obama's success.
I don't disagree with that because I think there was this philosophy of let's build off that momentum.
Barack Obama built a coalition
But I don't see a lot of keeping that coalition and actually doing what they need to to make sure that those voters feel secure or like their vote isn't just expected.
Well, we
and the
And so why when you're when you're taken for granted as a voter or anywhere, you tend to move on.
And this this sentence meant a lot.
for me said the democratic candidates have proven incapable of projecting strength unity and leadership and voters have drifted away and we've talked about this ad nauseam since 2016
The Republicans come out and they fight.
And whoever their candidate is, they rally behind that person and they fight and Democrats.
We bicker.
We have strongly worded memos.
We do not we do not attack.
We don't show people that we are willing to go down with the ship fighting for what we believe in and what we believe is best for this country.
And Republicans do it all the time.
And we have become
Very soft.
We allowed the labels of woke and snowflake
mean,
plan.
I think she was probably one of the most prepared people I've ever seen to potentially be in the White House.
However, I think the rollout of how the whole thing went down between the last minute Joe Biden deciding not to run, all of a sudden anointing her, I think that that
that rubbed a lot of people within the party that very much the wrong way.
It rubbed a lot of independence the wrong way.
You know, you can go back to, was that right?
Was it wrong?
Who knows?
I mean, the election was lost.
Here we are.
So hopefully what they've done is look at that and learn a better process and figure out a better way in case those situations ever happen again.
But to just basically campaign day after day on the other guy is worse and to not really allow Kamala Harris
to have her own messaging on things like the economy, to never really push back on the Republicans, she's your border czar.
Which
These are apt criticisms.
And there was a lot of that with the Biden...
operation his his group yeah keeping her keeping her on the fringes like that and not fighting back and it goes back to what we were just talking about the strength if you know even even before he knew he was dropping out he should have been pushing back on this yes that the White House should have been she's not the borders are she's doing this and this yeah she works on this she does this but they kind of they kind of and all vice presidents tend to get marginalized for
to a point.
What I think is interesting, and if you want to jump into the conversation this morning, and if you have opinions on whether or not you agree or disagree with this report or with us, we'd love to hear from you.
1-855-752-4842-185575 Civic.
What I think is interesting is that one of the things that the Trump administration did really, really well
in the second go around is give JD Vance a role right from the start.
Now, obviously, I know that's changed over the course of the last few months.
But at the start, it was very much, this is JD Vance.
He's going to come out and he's going to be the attack doc.
He's going to tell you that the policies this president is enacting are good because of this.
Whether you agree with that or not, there was a specific role for him.
When Kamala Harris got into the White House when Joe Biden was elected, I'm not sure they really knew what to do with her.
Well, there was the whole controversy because Joe Biden had made the mistake of saying he was going to pick a minority woman to be vice president.
So no matter who had been put in there, they were under an extra microscope because were they just there because they were because Joe Biden didn't want to go back on his word and that they wanted to put an African American woman in in the seat.
Yeah.
Now I know she was qualified.
Sure.
You know she was qualified.
Most people do.
But there were there were some even in this party that were questioning it.
Does she really belong as vice president?
Weren't there other more qualified candidates hinted white guys?
Weren't there others that could have done the job better?
But before we before we start wrapping this up, I do there was blame to be placed
at
This is
So they said she focused too much on college educated suburbs.
It left gaps with Josh Stein, who was the North Carolina gubernatorial candidate.
And so she left big gaps at unwinnable levels.
She lagged in rural areas, which proved to be insurmountable in swing states.
We saw it here.
Harris wrote off rural America, assuming urban and suburban margins would compensate.
That is dangerous and stupid.
They didn't do enough to position her because Joe Biden was, she was literally getting lagged down by the economic messaging coming from the Republicans.
She had been, she was dragged down by all of that.
Joe Biden's economy was much better than it is now.
But let's be realistic.
It was teetering.
It was teetering.
It was right there on the edge.
And I don't believe that there was enough of what we heard from her specifically of what she would do differently.
In fact, she even said, well, I kind of like what Joe's done.
Essentially is what she said.
And I plan on continuing to do that.
That's not what people wanted to hear.
This was not just Kamala Harris.
This was the whole Democratic Party.
They did not really define.
They just figured everybody knows how bad Trump is.
We don't have to hammer on it.
And they actually did.
That was a big failure of analysis.
With his favorability as low as it was, it should have been.
Yeah, let's focus on this.
Let's focus on this.
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Fairly solid, better than expected.
It's Daybreak with Brian and Jamie.
I'm Brian Noonan.
All right.
Does Aaron Rodgers go on your Packers Mount Rushmore?
855-755-CIVIC.
855-752-4842.
We'll go around the horn in a minute.
But first, Aaron Rodgers, if you have not heard, is planning to retire after
this season.
He has said this is it.
This is his 22nd season.
He is, of course, with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Now, according to ESPN's Brooke Pryor, when asked Wednesday if the campaign would be his last in the NFL, Rogers answered, yes, this is it.
And then the Atlantic's Brendan Howell reported that he said it as well.
The Steelers announced Monday that Rogers has signed a one year deal to return for a second season with the franchise.
He said Wednesday
he had originally some doubt about whether he would retire and hadn't made his decision until after the 2026 NFL Draft wrapped up in April.
So Aaron Rodgers still playing
Because if we're talking anybody, then I'm putting like Ron Wolf up there too, right?
Because
of what he was
able to do to turn the team around when he came back in
when
he was hired to, you know, basically.
change the franchise.
I would also put Ron Wolf up there as well.
Reggie White.
You only
get four.
I've got, I would, for players that would have Rodgers, Farve, Reggie White.
And then I think Vince Lombardi, I think, I don't, Ron Wolf is a really good argument as well.
I think I would go to Vince Lombardi first though, cause he laid the foundation and he did do.
that front office kind of stuff.
I think there are a lot of options and it depends.
And if you want to go really old school to the very beginning of the Packers history or if you want to look at the rebuild because let's be realistic as, uh, as bearish fans, you are all very well aware that in the 1980s, this team's
sucked.
Right.
But you
It's Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers.
And then I'm then I'm torn.
Do I go curly Lambo as the founder and the original coach?
Do I go Bart Starr, who brought Green Bay to like national prominence?
that that fourth spot is a little
is
is a big question but the first three should be non-brainers and no-brainers and I would have to go I would say because I grew up as a little kid the only only player I ever knew outside of the Bears was Bart Starr and Roger Stovak and Terry Bradshaw those were the only ones so I'm gonna go Lombardi, Starr, Farve
Rogers
I guess too, for a lot of people, and if you talk to Packers fans, I think a lot of them would put Rodgers on there, but then the fact that he was only able to win the one Super Bowl, but yet gets so close so many times, I think for some also tarnishes that, because that was always the biggest, when you talk to Packers fans,
right?
That is where their mind goes, well, he only brought us one trophy, right?
I'm going to take, go out on a limb here, hot take this morning.
I don't even believe it was Aaron Rodgers leadership that propelled that team.
I believe it was Charles Woodson in 2010.
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