Amy
Appearances
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
Together we earn about 130K. I guess our insecurity stems from, I'm in, as a church musician, I work as a church musician, and I have maybe one out of maybe 15, 12 to 15 full-time jobs in our area. There's not that many. And churches are on a downswing cycle at the moment. So my job does not feel absolutely secure for the next 20 some years.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
My husband works as a welder and he works for a family owned company, which we think should be all right. It's just things change. There was a company in our area that did really quite well and then suddenly it closed. its doors and all the workers had to find new jobs. It's just we both are a little edgy and we both come from fairly hardscrabble backgrounds.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
We don't have that comfort zone of like, oh, yeah, we'll be fine. You know, we both are more cautious.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
Musicians.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
No. And I have been thinking outside the box, like asking two churches, like, hey, would you be willing to pay for me part time and come together for benefits? It's the whole benefits thing that we both are also concerned about as we both head into our 50s and 60s, knowing as you age, you need medical insurance.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
I actually have the house in my name, so I pay the mortgage. My husband takes care of utilities and that kind of stuff. He also takes care of our bundled insurance, which is really helpful. We both have health insurance through our jobs, so that's taken care of, and it's a low deductible. We pretty much split stuff down the middle, and we have not combined our finances.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
We got married later in life, and he was coming from a divorce situation, and I had been single my entire life up until about 38 years old. I was not gung-ho to like, hey, let's mix all the finances together, and neither was he. We both wanted to keep things separate. Although I think Wisconsin's a common law. I don't know if that's the right word.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
Things are in common, so if one of us were to pass away suddenly, the other would inherit.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
Community property. That's it. We're a community property state. Yeah. Thank you.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
We are. We actually work as a team. We just keep our finances separate. The only reason we could afford the house is we work together. I was actually pretty proud of us. We got married, as I said, later in life. And we looked at each other and we were like, we really don't want presents because we both had life's worth of stuff to collaborate into a single household.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
So we asked for just financial donations at our wedding if people felt moved to. And we got enough to help with the down payment for a house.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
That is so cool. Yeah, we just we both if there's a box, we try to find whatever's outside of it.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
I think that would be solid. I contribute to that.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
According to my 401k, I have 89k. A little shy of 2 million. Yeah. We sat down last night and kind of broke it down. Like he's kind of similar. I think he said 88K was his. Together, I think he's got 20K in his savings and I've got 50K in mine.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
We probably plan to get a financial advisor or planner to help us with that. But our goal would be to keep things separate still and just pull what we need, not go together. But we don't really know. We really haven't explored that.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
We actually answered that separately. We were like, okay, we each need 2 million. But to be honest, I think it's probably 2 million for the two of us.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
I mean, I could see us staying where we are because we'll hopefully have paid the house off by then. But we also both want to travel. That's actually the top of our list is we really want to travel. We have looked at maybe moving to another country and being an expat. I have a couple of friends who have done that.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
There's a couple of communities that I'd be interested in either being a part of, and my husband is too. There's one in Costa Rica that we've looked at extensively. It's a Quaker community that we're both interested in being a part of. I think the cost of living is slightly less there, but we would investigate, like, how are the health benefits? How would it be living as an expat?
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
What are the expectations? We also don't want to be a drain on people that are natives to Costa Rica. We would rather come in and support them. But traveling and we would like to live long lives, but you can only guess so much.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
Well, the spending less and investing more is one. I'm planning in the spring to open up a Roth IRA so I can have a tax break when I retire. And being 50, I can put $8,000 into it a year. So that's something I'm starting to do as well as keep my 401k going. And something my husband and I both talked about, that we wouldn't mind doing side gigs.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
I mean, as a musician, I don't mind if I accompany until I can't. I will teach until I'm in the grave because I love it. I just love working with young musicians. And he's kind of similar. He's like, well, I could do handyman jobs. He loves to carve. He's done art pieces on commission.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
And being a welder, he would love to also teach, maybe be a kind of someone who can maybe come in and help a family run business, like help them train their welders, their young welders, that kind of thing.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
We're looking at the old sixty seven and a half.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
I believe 7% from me and my employer is amazing. They contribute 7% as well. So it's 14%.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
Oh, gosh, the seat got planted in my brain during the pandemic when I kept listening to different fire movement things that were happening. And honestly, it got planted because my husband and I could work during the pandemic. Talk about luck, because we both we had a very frightening 24 hour moment where neither one of us could work, but it was fine.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
He fantasized about retiring and me being a sugar mama. And I was like, no, no. I love it.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
I was like, no, no, no, dear. As a church musician, you got to be kidding. But that aside, we fantasized about it for a little bit. We just both had a moment of, oh, gosh, what are we going to do? But when we looked into it more and more, the frugality that was required, we would like to enjoy life. We would like to travel now.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
At the time that I was looking at it, my hips were starting to really degenerate and I knew that I had to get them replaced. So I'm like, I don't think I can retire young, pay this off. No. So we just kind of gave up on the idea. But what we liked about it, what we both picked up from it was being more frugal in a good way, not in a super strict.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
We eat cans of beans and rice and that's it for the rest of our lives.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
Yes. Oh, wow. I could cover my heavy metal side. This could be fun.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
Yeah. I was a Starbucks barista. So it was one of my first gigs when I moved back to Wisconsin. Well, there you go.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
No, I think you answered all the questions I had and then some. Actually, it's exciting to hear about this barista fire aspect of the fire movement. That's really cool. And I'm actually really on fire. Ha ha. Hmm. To go out and get myself a certified financial planner and get started. I'm really excited about that. So thank you. This has been really helpful and calming.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
I'm so excited to be here.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
Well, I'm actually feeling really good about spending. My husband and I, we're both kind of middle working class folks. I work in a church who works as a welder and we are pretty good at spending what we can afford and then paying off our credit cards every month. So that's really nice.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
Living within our means. Yep.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
Another thing we're really pleased about is that we actually have six months savings saved. So we're feeling OK. It's pretty volatile, I think, in both of our employments. So we just wanted to make sure we had that just in case. So that feels good. And our improvement is just we don't know what's coming down the pike for retirement. And both of us just started saving about 10 years ago.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
So that's what we're thinking about.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
Well, my father's on Medicaid, so I'm kind of watching through his experience what it's like to be on the other end of the spectrum of not having any money and using government stuff to survive. And he's on hospice with that. And so we just don't know what to expect. We don't know what will happen with social security. security. There's a lot of unknowns.
NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
What to do When Groceries Cost More and Retirement Feels Out of Reach
And we did a calculator game one evening many months ago. And we were like, we need 2 million in order to retire and live for 30 years after we retire. And it freaked us both out. We're like, oh, wow, we're not even close. That's what got us started on this little game.
Someone Knows Something
Introducing: Hell and Gone Murder Line from iHeart Podcasts | Doug Janis Part 1
Hello? Hey, this is Amy from Heligon. Oh, hi. How are you? Doing good. Can you talk?
Someone Knows Something
Introducing: Hell and Gone Murder Line from iHeart Podcasts | Doug Janis Part 1
Okay.
Something Was Wrong
S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
but it's something that we want to watch a little more closely. So that might be a one on a scale from one to four. And then maybe someone who is towards the end of their pregnancy and they are breached, that would be a four. And so that would be someone
Something Was Wrong
S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
that we would have to sit down with that person and have the conversation of this is more high risk than what really should be done outside the hospital. So let's make an appointment for you to see our consulting physician.
Something Was Wrong
S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
And then because we do have hospital privileges, if our consulting physician says, sure, we'll continue to take care of you, then the midwives will eventually be able to deliver the mom in the hospital. There are situations where maybe someone comes in that has a congenital heart defect or something from the very beginning that we know you're just not a candidate for out of hospital birth.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
And it's a hard conversation, but it's a really important conversation because we don't want to tell people how to have their baby, but we also feel like it's important for us to maintain that standard of care. so that we don't have a bad outcome. We don't want to have any regrets as far as outcomes for us.
Something Was Wrong
S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
It is hard to know. If it is too low, then are we doing things that we shouldn't be doing? And if it's too high, are we overreacting to some things or are we having patients that are a little high risk? So it is a hard number to come up with, but I would say 10% is probably a good number. Sometimes it just depends on the patients that you have.
Something Was Wrong
S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
I'm Amy Giles. I'm a certified nurse midwife. I've owned a birthing center north of Dallas for several years. I've worked there since 2006. Our birth center is Allen Midwifery and Family Wellness, and we're in Allen, Texas, which is north of Dallas. I really enjoy taking care of women at the birthing center. I also teach nurse midwife students at Baylor University.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
I agree with the fact that you shouldn't be afraid to transfer. You should transfer when you feel like it really is necessary. And so sometimes if you have a 2% or 3% transfer rate, then that's a little questionable.
Something Was Wrong
S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
But if you had a 20% transfer rate, that's unacceptable as well because you're either having too many high-risk clients that you're signing up or you're overreacting maybe to things that should have probably just been handled at the birth center. The other thing is what is the emergency transfer rate?
Something Was Wrong
S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
Because we break ours up into non-emergent and emergent because you need to know how often are they having to call an ambulance and it's an emergency as opposed to you've become high risk, let's get in the car and drive. The emergency transfer rate should be low because you should be able to transfer most of the time before you get to it being an emergency.
Something Was Wrong
S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
There are always situations that you just can't see coming. They surprise you. But for the most part, we can see if something's going south. If things are not looking good, we would rather get to the hospital in a non-emergent way than to wait for an emergency. It is one of those things that for the public, it's hard to know.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
But my suggestion is somewhere around 10 to 12% is probably a good transfer rate.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
Whenever someone is coming to the birth center to decide if this is the right place for them, these are actually the things that I discuss with them. So I appreciate that you asked that question because it is important to know which providers and which birth centers feel are emergency situations. One of them is if we have not diagnosed breach and a breach presentation comes in.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
That would be an emergency for us. We would get into the ambulance and go to the hospital. More unforeseen things might be if the cord collapses, basically meaning that the cord comes out in front of the baby's head and then it compresses the cord and it doesn't allow oxygen to get to the baby. That is a very rare occurrence, but it can happen at any time and for no reason whatsoever.
Something Was Wrong
S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
Postpartum hemorrhage is another. Honestly, that's the number one reason that we transfer to the hospital is unforeseen bleeding. So once the placenta is delivered, the uterus has to contract to stop the bleeding. For whatever reason, sometimes that just doesn't happen.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
At our birth center, because we are nurse midwives, we have all the same medications that we would give to women in the hospital to stop that bleeding. However, we don't want to stay at the birth center.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
We want to take them to the hospital so that in case they need blood and the fact that they need to be monitored for at least a day at our birth center after six hours, if our moms are not stable, then our policy is that we transfer them. It can be serious in a very short period of time. You can lose a lot of blood in a short period of time.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
As soon as we see that there's a hemorrhage and we start giving medications, if it doesn't respond really quickly, then we go ahead and call 911 and we go via the ambulance. If we have a mom whose blood pressure is incredibly high that we're afraid she might have a seizure, I know all those things sound very scary, but they can occur due to high blood pressure.
Something Was Wrong
S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
That's another mom that we might want to get her to the hospital in an ambulance. when the baby's heart rate is decelerating, so showing us that something is not going well with the baby. We would rather get to the hospital, get the mom on the continuous monitor so that it doesn't progress to an emergency situation.
Something Was Wrong
S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
It's kind of a controversial topic because there are lots of birthing centers that will do VBACs. However, at our birth center, we just don't feel comfortable with it because of the risk that is involved. Risk to the mom and risk to the baby. And we just don't feel like that's a risk that we want to take. It's not that we want to tell someone how to have their birth.
Something Was Wrong
S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
And that's another passion of mine is to build up the next generation of nurse midwives. I'm not from Texas, I'm from Louisiana. I moved here to go to Baylor for undergraduate school. I got married to a Texan and so I decided to stay. But when I got pregnant with our first baby, I really didn't have a provider. Since I wasn't from here, I used to go home to have my annual exams.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
We just don't want to put them at a higher risk. For us, because we can deliver at the hospital, if someone wants to do a VBAC, then we accept them for their prenatal care at the birth center. And then we deliver in the hospital. So we have a planned hospital birth.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
Absolutely. I hear you say that and it makes me cringe because it should never be like that. When you're thinking about caring for women, you need to think about when they get there from the very beginning to when they leave six hours after they have their baby.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
Even though it sounds like it's more about sanitary things with having towels, it's actually more of an important thing because if you don't have those, then you can have a baby that gets really cold. Let's say you have a water birth and you need that warmth around the baby in order to maintain the heat. I feel like there should be a standard that everyone should really have.
Something Was Wrong
S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
If you're going to own a birth center or you're going to deliver babies outside the hospital, you have to have a standard that you have created and to meet that standard every single time that you have a client come in. Staffing is another thing that you should have a minimum number of staff at each birth. You should have a minimum number of suture if you need to do a laceration repair.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
You should always have preparation before you have someone come in in labor. I just feel like that's the baseline of care, the bottom foundation, and then you build up on that. So that's disturbing.
Something Was Wrong
S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
You are exactly right. And one of the things that you said that upsets me as well is them not knowing. If you are going to have a student working with you, I think that's great because how else do you learn? The students that I have at Baylor that I teach, they have preceptors all over the country and we precept at our birth center.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
But you have to ask and you have to get permission from a client to have a student at their birth. If you're not asking, to me, that's just completely unacceptable. People need to know who are taking care of them and they should know what your credentials are. To have a student taking care of someone without their preceptor there, to me, is below the standard of care.
Something Was Wrong
S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
That is putting your client at a huge risk because that person is still learning. They don't know everything. There has to be another person there that knows what to look for, looks for those signs of an emergency. I wouldn't want a student, only a student, taking care of me. That would make me very nervous. A midwife and a student? Absolutely. I'm more than happy. Come and be a part of my birth.
Something Was Wrong
S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
But it's very disturbing to me if you did not know that it was a student and if that student was caring for you solely. But I do think that happens. I understand being so tired. You don't want to take care of people when you're tired, but you also don't want to defer to a student. Instead, you should call in another midwife and have them come in and be with the student.
Something Was Wrong
S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
I just don't find that to be acceptable at all. Our birth center is Allen Midwifery and Family Wellness. We're a family-owned center. So my midwife that I met when I was in midwifery school, she was kind of my mentor. And so she opened this birth center in 2003. That was the same place that I saw my friend deliver. And I begged her, I'm like, please, please let me be a part of your birth center.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
I asked a friend of mine where she had delivered her babies, and she said at a large facility downtown, and it's a teaching hospital. She said that she had a nurse midwife, and I had never heard of a nurse midwife before she told me that. Even though I was a nurse at the time, it just wasn't something that was popular 27 years ago. So I convinced my husband to go and meet this nurse midwife.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
I'll clean your floor. I'll clean your bathroom. I'll do whatever you need me to do as long as I can just be around this type of birth. When she got busy enough and had enough clients, then she hired me. So it was the end of 2005, beginning of 2006. And she hired me to be the second midwife. So it was just she and I, and I learned so much from her. She decided to retire in 2010.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
So she said, I think you and Jeff, so me and my husband, she said, I think you guys need to buy the birth center from me. And we both were like, look, we know nothing about running a business, but my husband has his MBA and he's very financially savvy. And so he said, okay, I think we can do that. And I kind of freaked out. I was like, I am not a manager. I don't know what to do.
Something Was Wrong
S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
But we just jumped in with both feet. That was in 2010. And we've grown the birth center. We now have six nurse midwives and then we employ only registered nurses. So that is significant. We used to do six births a month and now we do almost 20. So we've really grown it and it's been a labor of love for us. It's just a special place for us.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
And the people that are there, they really are like family to us. So it's a great place to work. I'm so happy that we decided to go ahead and make that jump because it's been the best decision of our lives.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
Yes. It's hard to find certified nurse midwives who want to work outside the hospital because there's a small percentage of us that feel called to be outside the hospital. So it is harder to find nurse midwives. I think you have to find someone kind of like me, where you walk into that birth center and feel like this is the way to have a baby. This is the place to be.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
Whenever we were looking to hire more midwives, we talked to people who had the same philosophy that we did. Midwifery is a pretty small community. Everybody kind of knows everyone. And so people that we knew that had the personality of wanting to spend lots of time with their clients, spend time during labor, really taking care of them. Those are the people that we talked to.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
So we went through a lot of midwives before we found just the right ones. And we slowly grew. We worked with three for a while. We jumped a little bit and had five just because we grew quickly. But I do think it's harder to find nurse midwives to be in a birth center because it's just a different philosophy. And because we are out of the hospital, we just can't
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
pay our midwives or our nurses as much as you could if you were in a big hospital system. The people that work for us, they have to take a pay cut to work with us. And to me, that says so much about the fact that they want to be there because they're willing enough to take a little bit of a pay cut and do what they love as opposed to making a little bit more money
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
The people that are there really want to be there. And I think that that's a lovely thing for us because everyone is committed, which is really nice.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
What I wish would happen is that every midwife that's outside of the hospital, that they would have to turn in their statistics every six months or every year to the state. And then the state comes up with maybe a grade. Maybe they say, you guys are doing great, except...
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
you have a lot of postpartum hemorrhage or except you're taking too long to transfer or whatever it may be, at least it would give some responsibility to the midwives. They would have to say, these are my results. I feel like everyone should know that if you go to a hospital, you can look up their C-section rate.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
And when we walked in, it was such a completely different experience than being at any other physician office. We went in, we sat down, she asked about us as people and about our relationship, what we wanted to get out of the pregnancy, how we wanted to have a baby. And then she did all of this education to help us know what to expect and how your body works.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
But if you want to go to a birth center or a home birth midwife, you don't know that. And there's no place for you to be able to get that information except for what the provider tells you. And there are other things that I think would be important. Standardization of the education. That happened with nurses.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
It used to be the standard that you had an associate degree, and then that changed to if you want a certain position, you have to have a bachelor's degree. If you're a certified nurse midwife, there is a standard of education. However, with a licensed midwife, there are several different ways that you can become a licensed midwife.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
I'm not sure which one is the best, but I wish that there was a standard one way, one board that oversees them, because I think it would make everything upfront. I feel like everything just needs to be available for clients to know what to expect. There needs to be transparency so that you know what you're getting.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
Thank you, Tiffany. It's been great speaking with you. And I appreciate the fact that you're wanting people to get this information and that you're putting this out there so that people can learn. So thank you so much.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
I was a nurse, and yet I didn't know a lot of the things that she was talking about. So it was really eye opening to us. And as we left, I told my husband, I want to be just like her. I want people to feel loved and taken care of just like she made me feel today.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
I was actually in grad school to become a family nurse practitioner, and I called my advisor and said, hold on, I need to change my major. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life. So I changed my major. I became a nurse midwife and then worked in a large teaching facility for a couple of years.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
Then one of my midwife friends had her baby at the same birthing center that I eventually owned, and I had never seen an out of hospital birth. And when I experienced that birth with her, it was very similar to the first time I had met my midwife. It was like the writing was on the wall. This is where you're supposed to be. I changed jobs and I've been at the birth center ever since then.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
It's my favorite thing to do, to be with women and to educate them and talk to them and hug them. It's the best job.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
Texas is interesting because we have several different types of midwives. So we have certified nurse midwives who have gotten their bachelor's in nursing and then gone back to school to either have a master's or a doctorate in midwifery. Then there are licensed midwives who have learned midwifery through apprenticeship.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
And so they aren't going through a school that we think of like a university, but more of a school that's specific for licensed midwives. So it's a different level of care. Nurse midwives are going to care for women who might be a little bit more high risk. We have privileges to deliver in the hospital and outside, whereas licensed midwives, they only can deliver outside of the hospital.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
Texas is interesting because we have a great number of both types of midwives. It's a really up and coming way to have your baby in birthing centers. It's a great place to be a midwife because we have so many great clients that want this type of experience. I worked on a committee for Texas that really looked at the statistics for maternal morbidity and mortality, and now it's under the CDC.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
But while I was on that committee, what I really found was people not necessarily advocating saying something's wrong with me and being ignored. that happens in the hospital, mainly because it's just, there's so many more people. I understand because I deliver in the hospital, but things fall through the cracks because there's not someone with that client all the time.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
So I think one of the solutions for that is a birth center birth. In the Dallas Fort Worth area, some certified nurse midwife birthing centers also have hospital privileges.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
That's correct. It's a significant difference because if someone becomes high risk, then we continue to follow them and to deliver them in the hospital. So the continuity of care is really lovely because when you don't have that luxury, then you're not able to continue to care for your client. In other words, you become either more of a support person or equivalent to like maybe a family member.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
Whereas our midwives, we're able to continue to deliver in the hospital. We can take our clients to the hospital who might need a higher level of care. I think it's really important to be able to have a safe option for people who want to go that route, where they want the midwifery care during pregnancy, but then for safety, they can deliver in the hospitals. I think it's a nice compromise.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
Every state is a little bit different in how birth centers are licensed. And in Texas, the licensing board says that you have to be within 30 minutes of a hospital. I think that's kind of far. That's just what the state says. So I feel like if you're somewhere between five and 10 minutes, that that's pretty safe. We're about six minutes away from our hospital and it works really well.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
I don't ever feel like, oh, we've got to get there, hurry up, because it's pretty fast. There are lots of rural areas in Texas. And so there may not be an option for you to have such a close hospital. And they may just not have any hospitals in that rural area. So maybe a birth center is all you have. And in that case, more power to them, that's gotta be a hard situation.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
But if you're in an area where you have a lot of options on hospitals, I would recommend somewhere between five and 10 minutes to the hospital. I just feel like people need to know that there are options for them. There are also safe options. When you do want to get out of the hospital and you want to be in a birth center setting, you just need to do your research.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
You need to know who is staffing the birth center. How many clients do they take every month? Do they have nurses? Do they have birth assistants? Can they prescribe medication if you are bleeding? Do they have a relationship with a hospital that's close by? All of those things are super important.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
And so I hope that will turn around and that Texas can get better at doing things to prevent these maternal morbidity and mortality cases. I feel like midwifery care is definitely one of those things that could improve it. The other thing is knowing your level of comfort because you have to feel comfortable where you are.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
And I tell clients all the time, if you're not comfortable in the birth center, you won't have a great birth because you'll be too stressed. So they should deliver in the hospital and vice versa. You should always know you have an option, but you should go with your gut and decide what's best for you and your family.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
Everyone is a little bit different in why they seek us out. But for the most part, people are looking for individual attention, individual plans of care, not being cared for like everyone, but instead having a midwife sit down and really talk about your specific needs and how you wanna have a baby and what's really important to you. That's a big deal.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
Another thing is that we do have longer appointments. We have 30 minutes to an hour, depending on how far along you are in labor. We have that extra time. Another reason is that people who have already had children, they're able to bring their kids in and We have toys in just about every room, so they have a place to be able to play. We're very family friendly.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
We want everyone to come in and feel like that's a place where they belong. And how can we make that a different experience? because everybody deserves the birth that they want. There's always little things, you know, that come up. There are emergencies or risk factors. But even at that point, we try to make the birth as close as we can to what they want.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
As far as like the different kinds of clients that we have, it ranges from very young people who are having their first baby to people who are having their 10th baby. We've had someone who's had 10 babies with us
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
For people who maybe have had a bad experience in the past, a lot of people say they're just looking for a healing birth. So we can really dive into some of the things that they experienced that were really negative for them. We try our best not to ask which birth center was that or to really ask a lot of questions that are specific to that birth center.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
We try to just ask questions about what was it that made your experience different or difficult. A lot of times it is that maybe they were more high risk and they didn't quite realize it. And then maybe they ended up transferring to the hospital without that continuity of care. And it was just very disappointing to them. We hear that more often because if you feel like
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
You're low risk and you're a good candidate for this particular type of care. And then it doesn't come to fruition. And then later on, you hear someone say, oh, well, my midwife would have never let me do that in a birth center or my midwife would have never let me do that at home. I think that's the number one thing that we hear. It is a small community.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
And so when there are poor outcomes, everyone kind of knows about it. There are times that the public will try to avoid different midwives or different birthing centers. And that's why I think it's just super important to interview the midwives that would be taking care of you and get a feel for them and to ask questions about how they would handle different situations.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
I think you need to know what level of care that you want. there are people that they really don't want types of intervention. So those are people that might be more inclined to do a home birth with a licensed midwife or a birth center with a licensed midwife.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
And people that are a little more comfortable having what I would call a safety net would look at more of a certified nurse midwife birthing center because of the fact that we can give antibiotics if needed, or we do have some pain medication that we can give at the birth center. And we do have that relationship with the hospital.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
There are people that can't even imagine having a baby outside the hospital. So they would definitely not be a birth center candidate, but then there are people who they feel comfortable outside the hospital, but they just wanna know that they have the safety of having someone who is a nurse and who has an advanced degree and has that experience that makes them feel a little bit more comfortable.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
So it really just depends on what you're looking for.
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S23 E3: Standards of Midwifery Care with Dr. Amy Giles, DNP, CNM
Those are really hard conversations to have. We call it a risk assessment. I went through all the different high risk situations that you could have while you're either pregnant or during labor. And I gave it a score. So maybe you come in and you have thyroid issues. Well, that's not a big deal for nurse midwives because we can treat that.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
The parole hearings, the first one was May of 23. The second one just happened this previous May. Per usual, quite eye-opening. And if the first parole hearing wasn't shocking enough, the second one was a bit more shocking. Maybe it's because the reality of his release is just right around the corner. He said a lot of scary, crazy things yet again in this last parole hearing.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
Leading up to the parole hearing, we also have to provide victim impact statements again. I'm grateful to all of the other victims that also provided them because it isn't just me who's impacted in this. It's numerous people who have also been brought into this mess. The way that the parole hearing worked for me, I am not there in person. I am attending via phone.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
So there's not video for me either. The victim advocate calls me ahead of time and loops me in with the parole board chair who's conducting the hearing. Once the hearing is done, then I get back on with the victim advocate and have a conversation. We joined the parole hearing and I can't see anything. It's before the parole board chair hits record.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
I hear some scuffling and the parole board chair asked him, what is that you have with you? And he said, oh, it's just a book I got from the library. The parole board chair asked him to put it away. And that stuck with me. I reached out to the victim advocate afterwards and I said, I need to know what that book was. I know with Morrison, there is no coincidence and he is very calculated.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
Sure enough, it was a biography on Adolf Hitler. To me, that's in line with some of his previous behaviors. So that's how it started. At one point early on, he asked if he was still going to be able to make lunch because he didn't want to miss lunch and completely interrupted the parole board chair. In the first parole hearing, he said that being in jail has been the best experience of his life.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
He made a note in the second parole hearing to say that it's been the second best experience of his life next to his childhood. He mentioned his family and his parents throughout the second parole hearing. And yet you haven't talked to your parents since you went to jail.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
He had mentioned that he spent more time outside since he's been in Colorado and incarcerated than he did in his time in New Jersey. Although he hasn't had the opportunity to go out and explore, he absolutely wants to come back to Colorado. To me, although he put it in context of a vacation, I took that as one of his victims as a direct threat that he's coming back here.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
Why would you go back to the state or even articulate you want to come back to the state where you have a victim that you stalked? I have pages and pages of notes that I'm just jotting down as the parole hearing was going on. And I'm just giving you a few of the notes because the insanity is incomprehensible in a lot of ways.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
I think one other thing definitely worth noting is he's been working in the library. The parole board chair did ask questions around what's going to make you successful when you get out of jail and what are your plans? He told the parole board chair that he wants to work in a library when he gets out.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
For those who have been in a library recently, there's a lot of technology in those facilities and access to technology. Of course, he wants to work in a library. He wants access to computers. I looked at my permanent protection order and it says that he's just not to contact me in any capacity.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
That's one thing I asked for in my victim impact statement is that he couldn't have access to electronics and all these things. I think the world we're living in, that's very hard to monitor.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
In his parole hearing, when they asked what you're going to do when you're released on parole, the first thing he said is, well, I know the victim has a protection order on me, so I'm not going to contact her. I was like, why did you even point that out? That was just odd to me.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
Exactly. He's always admitted that he's done the crime and he continues to, but there's no empathy or emotion or apology. And these parole hearings, he's not changed. The first parole board chair said some very direct things to Morrison. This parole board chair, I think, took a different approach.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
When I thought back to how he handled it all, he ultimately let Morrison tell him he wanted the mandatory release date. So here he is up for parole. And at the end of it, Morrison had talked himself in so many directions that the parole board chair at one point was like, sir, are you asking to be released on your mandatory release date? And he said, yes. I thought, wow, he's very smart.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
And he's obviously in this role for a reason, because that was a win in this parole hearing. He wasn't released early. So he was OK with the mandatory release date, which in the parole hearing he was talking about being in December. At the time, I thought it was April or March. And that was bumped up from what it was originally going to be.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
So I'm jotting down notes like, how does he keep referring to his mandatory release date as end of December of this year? Obviously, he was privy to some information that I wasn't. And this is kind of his tone as he's talking to the parole board chair. December is actually better because his flag football team's been doing pretty good and they did really well last year.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
He doesn't really want to be there for the holidays because he doesn't get along with his brother-in-law. All signs are pointing to he will be released the end of this year.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
I'm still waiting for official confirmation, but every month I check his inmate DOC page and his mandatory release date keeps getting bumped up two weeks every month, which if you line that up with the amount of months we have left in the year, it's right up at the end of the year. The hardest part of this has been the unknown.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
This crime, there was so much unknown that that was what made it so painfully difficult. I don't know when I'm going to hear from the victim advocate or from the system is what I will say, because they have to notify me as a victim about his release, where he's being released, all of these things. But it's never as much ahead of time as it really should be.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
I feel like I need to be proactive on my end, asking the right questions, reaching out to the right people. So I know what I'm dealing with. I have wanted him to be out of Colorado from the get go. I don't know why they sent him here anyway, since it's a stalking case and they brought him closer to me. I want him to go back to New Jersey once his sentence is served. And he does as well.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
What he has filed for is something called interstate, so he can serve his parole in New Jersey and not in Colorado. As a result, he has some hoops to jump through. One, the state of New Jersey has to welcome him back, meaning he has to have a place to live, he has to have a job, and he has to come to them with a plan. So he can't just go back.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
A lot of what I'm processing right now is I don't know if he's going to be released and go back to New Jersey to serve his parole, or if he will be forced to serve his parole here in Colorado. If he does interstate, he still has to get himself to New Jersey. He has to pay his way and get his way back there.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
And if he doesn't interstate and he is in Colorado, then that is a whole nother part of this journey that I have yet to process. I'm hoping I will know sooner rather than later where he's going to be serving his parole, because as you can imagine, if he's going to be in Colorado, that opens a whole nother piece of this for me emotionally. It's something I have to be prepared for to happen again.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
I feel like I'm being re-victimized by him being released. And I don't feel like I'm on the other side yet as a survivor, but I will be eventually. I can't assume anything relative to his release. I have to be prepared. And that's very overwhelming. I have to compartmentalize and process each piece one at a time. And it's something I'm doing now leading up to that release.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
Although I do have fearful moments, I refuse to live in fear. I will be prepared for his release. And that is all I can really do, given the circumstances and the position he's put me in. When Morrison's released, regardless of where he's released, I'm not going to be here. I'm going to be somewhere else for my mental health. When I do come back, then I can cocoon. I want to come home to peace.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
This is the other part of what I've been processing. I haven't had peace since I realized he's going to be released. I think one of the hardest things is I want to refuse to let him steal my peace. And yet he has stolen it from me so many times. But I know who he is going into the release. I have a name. I have a face. For so many years, I didn't know who he was, where he lived.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
When he's released, at least I know who I'm looking for or what I'm looking for. That gives me a little peace going into this next phase.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
I'm still on this journey to find other victims and hopefully empower them to come forward. And if they want to press charges against Morrison to do so, there's a few things that are going against us in this journey to keep Morrison in jail and away from harming people. It's statute of limitations relative to stalking.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
Three years in most states is the statute of limitations, which now he's been in jail for three years. If charges haven't been pressed thus far, then it will have to be new charges once he's released, if and when he starts up this activity again. The reality is it is not done. And this is a forever journey until we're no longer cohabitating on this earth together.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
One of my priorities was trying to get these fake accounts of myself that Morrison had created taken down Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, wherever else I'm not aware of. It actually ended up being a very difficult task. It was too overwhelming for me to actually pursue. And now, given where I'm at, I'm glad that the ones that I'm aware of are still out there.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
One of the updates is he or someone is active on the Facebook profile, not posting actively, but has been changing some of the settings behind the scenes. How you can view friends, for example. I follow the profile and one time I could see the close to thousand friends on Facebook. And then a few weeks later, all of them are removed and I could just see my one mutual friend.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
Then I checked again earlier this week and all of the friends are back up there. There's just some funky stuff happening behind the scenes and I am monitoring it. The only person I know who does have the login is Morrison. So he or someone else is active on that account and must be doing it from inside the system.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
I have been trying to reach out to all sorts of parties, trying to get engaged in the advocacy community, awareness and legislative support, all of the things. I did not know where to start. I was on a business trip, actually, with some public officials. My representative within the area that I live just happened to be on this trip.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
I thought, well, if there is an opportunity in a professional way, I want to broach the conversation of how do I get involved? He was very supportive and said, I'm going to connect you with the head of the judicial committee here in the state of Colorado. And he did that when we got back. That kind of spearheaded where I went from there. So I met with the head of the judicial committee.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
He connected me with a couple of nonprofits, one of which was supporting some legislation around online facilitated misconduct. This was specific to dating apps and remote tracking. It's really just to keep dating apps and sites more accountable and putting some safety measures in place. And this bill also addressed deep fakes, which is a huge problem in this country with AI right now.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
Deep fakes and remote tracking, which to my knowledge, we did not have in the state of Colorado. And the hope is that we can build upon this legislation, not just apply to dating apps, but all technology companies. I did testify at the legislature here in Colorado this past year, which that's a whole nother experience.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
They provided support from talking points, reviewing my testimony to make sure that it was buttoned up in the way that it needed to be. It feels so good to be able to do it and to take action. But I was way more emotional than I anticipated. When I testified the first time, there were two other survivors who also spoke about their experiences.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
Both of them had been sexually assaulted through meeting somebody on a dating app. I did not know their stories going into testifying in person. I heard the first story and her story was so shocking to me. And so going into telling my story next was difficult because not only is telling my story emotional, but then hearing these other stories, it was a lot.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
I think now that I've had the exposure and I know what to expect going forward, I hope to have less emotion from that capacity because I want to be taken very seriously. And although some emotion was good to show, I felt like I was too emotional. I did not expect that. The bill did pass. And so I was happy to support it.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
Absolutely. I am a person by nature that if I see something wrong, I want to fix it. And I want to bring good out of it. I want to bring change. That's just part of me I've had to accept. But through that, it helps me heal because I feel like I'm bringing something good out of a really terrible experience.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
From that perspective, it does help you heal and move forward by helping others and hopefully bringing change to legislation and advocating and bringing awareness. It's empowering. And the more I focus on that side of it, the more I heal from the nasty bad parts that I continue to have to deal with. I think being a voice as a victim who's experienced that is a big piece of this.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
So often stalking is downgraded from other crimes because someone hasn't lost their life yet. That's one thing I'm trying to bring awareness to is stalking is a precursor to a lot of crimes. I don't think that we talk about that piece of it enough. I think there need to be harsher penalties for stalking crimes and cyber stalking crimes.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
Prosecuting these crimes is prevention of these crimes escalating. Exactly. There needs to be better legislation, longer sentencing for stalkers. Like the statute of limitations being three years was mind blowing to me because what are the prior victims of Morrison going to do at this point?
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
He can't be prosecuted for them, even though we know he's guilty of a lot of the same crime with a lot of victims. It's really on the criminal side of the legislation and creating harsher penalties for stalkers. One of the things that's been shocking to me is the lack of jurisdictions speaking to one another, especially in my situation where we're talking about multiple jurisdictions.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
Since I was the victim, everything's been handled here. I'm grateful because the state of Colorado has good stalking laws compared to other states. But there's a lot that still needs to be done. This jurisdiction issue has just been mind blowing because it is stalking and cyber stalking in particular.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
The federal side of law enforcement is overwhelmed with other crimes that we get pushed to the back burner and we're not prioritized. But I do think that the jurisdictions need to be talking to each other across state lines and international lines more frequently because these stalkers are acting in multiple jurisdictions.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
Another thing I think needs to occur is just like there's a sex offender list, that's a national kind of database of sex offenders. Why do we not have a national stalking database?
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
To me, that's one of the simplest ways to protect others and to hold these stalkers accountable for multiple jurisdictions to know what they're doing in other jurisdictions and what they may or may not have been convicted of. I will say the stalking survivor community that are trying to bring awareness and advocacy is pretty small.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
There are some other survivors that I'm trying to make contact with, one here locally in particular, to help me be more educated. I want to help write legislation, and my understanding is that's very difficult and hard to navigate. That's not going to stop me. I just want to know the right avenue and where to begin and who are the representatives that I need to be talking to who would support that.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
You're amazing. Thank you for that. I feel like there's change and there's positive things coming. I have my days. I just feel deflated, frustrated and unmotivated in some capacity. So you just re-energized me to keep going with it. So thank you. I think also rest is productive.
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WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
I couldn't agree more. I think I've been saying no a lot more granted where I'm at in the healing or acceptance or processing side of all what I'm going through right now. I need downtime and enjoying the little things again. One thing Morrison said in this last parole hearing is he's in the best shape of his life.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
Live grieving. I have not heard that term and that is so relevant to me right now. I wish I could heal and not get emotional, but I have learned the emotional side is a package deal. I'm trying to be better at accepting it. I was in therapy when all this was really rearing its head.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
And I got to a point where both my therapist and I said, you know, I think I'm in a good place and I can take a break. I just reconnected with her this week because I can't do it all on my own. And sometimes that's hard for me to accept. I'm going to re-engage with her and hopefully help process some pieces of this that I either haven't or I'm struggling to do.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
Hi, this is Amy from season 19 of Something Was Wrong. I shared my story of being stalked, sending my stalker to prison, serving the maximum sentence possible in the state of Colorado. And finally, the beginning of the parole process. Going into the recordings prior to hearing them back, I felt like I was in a really good place because here it is all laid out.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
My parents, they're still a huge support system and have always been and continue to be. I'm very grateful to them and my entire support system. They've been wonderful. And I think with Morrison's release coming very soon, the support is ongoing and I'm so grateful to them. I'm so grateful to you both for letting me share my story. And it's been such a healing journey for me.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
The impact and bringing attention to such an important subject. I'm very grateful to you both and your entire team. I probably wouldn't have found one of the victims without you. We achieved our goal. And now I just want to find others. I want to prevent him from hurting others.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
I appreciate that. I'm so glad to hear other stalking survivors have chosen to come forward because we need so many more to come forward for real change to be had.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
All the nitty gritty, nasty details that oftentimes I was hesitant to share with people even when they knew my story. But it was important to get all those details out. Listening back to the episodes was healing. It was emotional. I was very grateful to my friends, my family, and those who also told their stories because they're also victims of Morrison's through what he did to me.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
I was grateful that they were all willing to participate. That meant a lot because I think their perspectives helped support the story. There were parts of their story that they had not shared with me in an effort to protect me with what I was dealing with. And so there are parts that I also learned through hearing others' experience with it as well.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
In particular, I think of Natalie and the experience she had where someone was on the Airbnb site. I did not know that. And had I known that, I would have been freaked out for her. And I'm upset that she had to go through that. The fact that they had the opportunity to share their side of the story too, because I was the primary victim. I'm the one telling my story.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
But there were so many people impacted. Listening to it back, I think I realized during the time that he was stalking me, I thought I was holding it together pretty good and protecting those around me. And I think in hearing their stories, I realized that I shouldn't have been so hard on myself and having to keep this so separate from my life.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
I knew I held a lot of guilt and embarrassment that this happened to me because if I hadn't sent the pictures or if I had done this, that or the other, then it wouldn't have happened to me. I've let all of that go, but I don't think I fully let it go until I heard the episodes back.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
hearing their perspectives and their side of what they experienced, I realized that they could tell that I was not okay. And I wish I just would have been more upfront about what I was experiencing from an emotional standpoint and my mental health The response that I got is those who did know at least a little bit about what was going on had no idea the extent of what was actually happening.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
And those who had no idea, reaching out and saying, Oh, my God, Amy, I had no idea you were going through this. how did you just keep everything together? And the sad reality is as a victim of this type of crime, I don't get to lose it. I don't get to fall apart because I do have a life I have to keep together. So part of me was glad that people had no idea.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
I think now that I'm on the other side of this and my story's out there, I wish in hindsight, I would have been even more open with people. I had a number of people reach out every week. I feel like someone learns of my story or has heard it, sees something I post on social media, and they reach out and say, I had a stalker or I was sexually assaulted or something related to what I experienced.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
It's shocking to me how many people actually have something similar that's happened to them. I'm grateful that folks have come forward and felt comfortable to share their story with me. That's something that transpired after listening to the episodes too. My motivation in telling my story to you all was I wanted to find other victims. I was already aware of one going into the podcast.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
If I could find one other victim and get them to come forward, then this has been so worth it. I've gotten so much more out of it than finding one victim. There was a victim that came forward after listening to my story on something was wrong. I'm so grateful that she came forward and she reached out to you, Tiffany. You were able to connect us. We still talk.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
Thank you. What's been fascinating with uncovering and connecting with other victims is realizing that this is a large web from a distance standpoint. They live a long ways away from where I'm located and I know Morrison's reach is large. I think it's even larger than what I initially thought. I identified a third going through my case file that I got access to.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
When I got the case file, I knew it was a large file. I had heard it was like 100,000 pages. I have about a little over 20,000 of them because I definitely extracted a lot of the pages out of it. I heard that at the sentencing. I assume it's because there's photos. What was surprising is the photos of me were not extracted.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
They are all in there, which at this point I've just become numb to, unfortunately. The whole purpose of me wanting to get the case file was to identify other victims and reach out to them so they knew who this guy was. Identifying other victims, there were some that were obvious to me, and then there are some that weren't so obvious.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
I think what surprised me is as I've reached out to these victims, it's like a 50-50 shot. I even get a response. I know each person's journey is different. And given the trauma of the stalking that Morrison did, I wouldn't be surprised if they felt like I was him because they still don't know who this person is or whatever it may be.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
Some interesting aspects of the case file, they outline and detail the process for executing the search warrant play by play, which was fascinating. Who was there, how they're going to do it, when they're going to do it. That was very interesting. I knew there were a lot of law enforcement agents agencies that participated, but I didn't realize it was that many.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
And there was a canine unit as well. It says they asked to interview Morrison and he declined, of course. So they separated him from his parents first thing. And then they interviewed his parents and his parents mentioned that he had an incident in college. He put bodily fluids on a girl's door. No charges were ultimately pressed. So he's not convicted of anything.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
Yet this crime occurred through the search warrant, play by play. There were a number of zip drives. The zip drives would have a first name of a woman and then whore. First name, whore. And they found multiple of these. So when I say there's multiple victims, there are multiple victims. They found Nazi memorabilia in his room.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
There's just a lot of information from the technical side or the IP side of stuff, given the nature of the cyber stalking. It was not surprising, but the extent of it was. I keep going back through the case file thinking I'm going to see something I didn't see before. I think I've resigned myself to the fact that I've identified all of the potential victims and I've reached out to all of them.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
My dad has said, it's not your responsibility to necessarily protect all of the victims. I get what he's saying because he's trying to protect me and my emotional well-being. But there's something within me that doesn't want to stop trying to identify other victims until there's an adequate number of us that are aware of each other.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
I feel like he's winning to some degree in this because he's been charged with one stalking crime and he knows all of the crimes he's committed. Just to refresh your memory, he got the maximum sentence in the state of Colorado, thank God. But that sentence is four years with time served and two years parole or probation. He's been in jail since November of 2021. So we're coming up on a third year.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
As crazy as it sounds, it's something I didn't comprehend or maybe I couldn't at the time. Once he was sentenced and in jail, I had this moment of peace like this is done. It's something that after the second parole hearing in May in particular became a very real realization of mine more than ever that now I just go into the next phase. It's almost like chapters.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
You feel like it's the last chapter. And I now realize that there's many chapters ahead of me. I just will have to focus on each one, one at a time. I've heard multiple survivors talk about too. It's like just when you get one parole hearing done, six months later, you're prepping because you're going to have to go into the next one.
Something Was Wrong
WCN Presents: [Amy] S19 Updates
And there's responsibilities you have as the victim in those parole hearings. Although you get bits of peace in your life, you don't get full peace. Ever.
The Dr. John Delony Show
I’m Angry All the Time and It’s Ruining My Life
I am awesome. Super excited to talk to you.
The Dr. John Delony Show
I’m Angry All the Time and It’s Ruining My Life
I'm very anxious, so I'm just going to start rattling off my question. Don't be anxious.
The Dr. John Delony Show
I’m Angry All the Time and It’s Ruining My Life
Well, I have a question. All right, bring it. So how can my husband and I pay off over $40,000 in debt stay debt-free, and be able to teach our kid good money habits when our habits are in the toilet.
The Dr. John Delony Show
I’m Angry All the Time and It’s Ruining My Life
Okay. So my husband and I have been married for over almost 20 years. We've been together since we were in high school, high school, sweetheart.
The Dr. John Delony Show
I’m Angry All the Time and It’s Ruining My Life
I know. It's so great. I'll send you the prom picture. It's great.
The Dr. John Delony Show
I’m Angry All the Time and It’s Ruining My Life
No, it was Celine Dion because it was the Titanic. Oh, my gosh.
The Dr. John Delony Show
I’m Angry All the Time and It’s Ruining My Life
All right. So we're a law enforcement family. My husband's been in law enforcement for over 20 years. I'm also a special needs mom for 14 years. And so one of the proudest moments was when I gave birth to my son. The next day was payday. And I paid off our credit card and I was like, this is the best. Amazing.
The Dr. John Delony Show
I’m Angry All the Time and It’s Ruining My Life
And then our son started down this road of all these medical needs and nobody knew what was going on with him. And we spent the last, the next four years trying to figure out a diagnosis for him. So, um, I'm sorry.
The Dr. John Delony Show
I’m Angry All the Time and It’s Ruining My Life
It's a really rare diagnosis that like 32 people in the world have. Oh, man. But thankfully, everything is controlled. We've got therapy. We've got medication. Life is good in that. We figured out some financial stuff that we can use for financial assistance. That's been great. but it just feels like whenever we get a chance to get ahead, like we do really well.
The Dr. John Delony Show
I’m Angry All the Time and It’s Ruining My Life
And then all of a sudden we're back into our old habits. And so I know of about $45,000 in debt. I secretly feel like there's more. Um, one of the things I told him about at the beginning of the year, it's like, we need to sit down and like really be honest about our finances, where we're at and how are we going to do better? Because we have a, we have a 12 year old as well. Um, who is,
The Dr. John Delony Show
I’m Angry All the Time and It’s Ruining My Life
like has no concept of money and we are not doing a great job, set him up for success. So what is, what is the best way to have this conversation with my husband who, um, is prideful in what he does, which, you know, I love him. He's been an amazing supportive husband and has always provided, um, like he's working six days a week. He's working as much as he can, um, to try to help make ends meet.
The Dr. John Delony Show
I’m Angry All the Time and It’s Ruining My Life
And so we just aren't coming up with a great plan that's helping us move forward in the right direction.
The Dr. John Delony Show
I’m Angry All the Time and It’s Ruining My Life
And I think that's where he's trying to figure out. We've got some investment properties that I don't know a ton about. He knows more about that than I do. I see it as another place for us where we're spending money. And he's like, but it's coming out of the business. I'm like, but it's supposed to be an investment, but we're in debt.
The Dr. John Delony Show
I’m Angry All the Time and It’s Ruining My Life
And another kind of like side to this. So I have stayed at home with my boys since I've given birth. And there's a guilt factor in that I spend money because of the house. I buy things for the house. Boys' haircuts, groceries, whatever. And there's a guilt factor that I have because... I'm not working outside the home to bring in some income to be able to help the family. Any advice for that?
The Dr. John Delony Show
I’m Angry All the Time and It’s Ruining My Life
No, but there is the occasional like, oh, your boyfriend's in the neighborhood, also known as the Amazon man, delivers my packages.
The Dr. John Delony Show
I’m Angry All the Time and It’s Ruining My Life
I think he is. But you know, sometimes after you start to hear things over and over again, you're like, wait, is this reality? Like, am I really? But, you know, and it's a battle, and I think it's also just... my work history and like, I used to be a provider. I used to be, I used to be the one that was the breadwinner between the two of us before we had kids. And then now it's kind of gone.
The Dr. John Delony Show
I’m Angry All the Time and It’s Ruining My Life
And so trying to let that go.
The Dr. John Delony Show
I’m Angry All the Time and It’s Ruining My Life
Yep. I love that. I love that.
The Dr. John Delony Show
I’m Angry All the Time and It’s Ruining My Life
But at the same time, it was great because I take things personally when we have these conversations. And so your tips on communication was really helpful.
The Dr. John Delony Show
I’m Angry All the Time and It’s Ruining My Life
He just loves toys and loves to buy them and loves to buy gifts for everybody.
The Dr. John Delony Show
I’m Angry All the Time and It’s Ruining My Life
He's probably like early elementary school.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
Let me come round and actually... It's more that the coffee machine's really...
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
what's going on here amy we're playing civilization a new dawn so it's based off a video game and it's gained victory points based on area control placing certain tokens down killing people to be completely honest so killing people yeah you're taking over city states and stuff it sounds very very serious how important amy is having a laugh while you're doing this
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
It's the main reason I come, so very, very important. If you can't have a laugh with the people you're playing with, it gets pretty dull very quickly.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
I have a lot of those. I'm very well known for my outbursts of when I've made mistakes like that or for when someone's screwed me over. I think that's kind of my signature of this club at this point is just hearing me screaming from across the room.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
Have you ever been to the point of life where you're kind of just existing and you're going through the motions of just, I'm just going to work and then I'm going home and that's it? And I found it advertised on Facebook and I'd always had an interest in board games, but none of my family were, so I never got to play them. So I thought, screw it, and showed up and I've been here every week since.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
I'm getting out of my house a lot more than anything.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
Yeah, there's definitely a big stereotype about the whole nerd stereotype. I very much fit that one. If I'm not board gaming, I'm in my bedroom on my computer. But this is definitely breaking the mould, clubs like this. It is encouraging people who would normally be introverts to go out and be a bit more extroverted and meet new people.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
I've doubled my friend count in the last six weeks, so it definitely works.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
No, no, of course not. I use that selectively because I'm happy to say I'm a nerd. But you don't have to be. I think there's plenty of people here who have very un-stereotypically nerdy jobs and hobbies and they still just enjoy it. You definitely don't have to be.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
There has not yet been a game here that I have played before. OK.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
You are going to learn something from scratch. You're not going to find... There's no Cluedo and Monopoly or this sort of stuff here. But a lot of the games look very heavy, but in reality they're not. And they are really easy to learn. And even if they are a heavier one to learn, everyone is very patient and happy to deal with bajillion questions of how do you play the game, basically.
The Ramsey Show
Normal Is Broke and in Debt. Do You Want To Be Normal?
Okay. Sure sounds like real debt to me.
The Ramsey Show
Normal Is Broke and in Debt. Do You Want To Be Normal?
Well, yeah, but other than that, I have no debt.
The Ramsey Show
Normal Is Broke and in Debt. Do You Want To Be Normal?
Are they making 0%? No, they're making a little bit. There's a couple of them in savings, and then some of it's just cash.
The Ramsey Show
Normal Is Broke and in Debt. Do You Want To Be Normal?
I have a life insurance, a small life insurance policy that's all I have.
The Ramsey Show
Normal Is Broke and in Debt. Do You Want To Be Normal?
Right now. My 19-year-old is away at college, but I mean, he'll be here when he's not at college.
The Ramsey Show
Normal Is Broke and in Debt. Do You Want To Be Normal?
My monthly expenses are about $16.75.
The Ramsey Show
Normal Is Broke and in Debt. Do You Want To Be Normal?
Probably not. I could probably do a thousand.
The Ramsey Show
Normal Is Broke and in Debt. Do You Want To Be Normal?
Yeah, it just depends on the time of the year. During the summer, I make a lot more because I have way more children.
The Ramsey Show
Normal Is Broke and in Debt. Do You Want To Be Normal?
And that's kind of why I haven't done it. I just don't understand any of it, and I've always been afraid of it, and I've watched too much American Greed, so...
The Ramsey Show
Normal Is Broke and in Debt. Do You Want To Be Normal?
I do childcare, and so during the summer I get a full house. I have all the kids from school, school-age children, so I have 12 kids all summer long. And then during the winter, kids go off to school, and I tend to have less. And this year I chose to have a few less because I took my first grandbaby. I'm watching her. And with a baby, it's just a lot more work.
The Ramsey Show
Normal Is Broke and in Debt. Do You Want To Be Normal?
And so I've had less children during the years. Are you getting paid to watch the baby?
The Ramsey Show
Normal Is Broke and in Debt. Do You Want To Be Normal?
Probably a good number. 2030? I don't know.
The Ramsey Show
Normal Is Broke and in Debt. Do You Want To Be Normal?
Well, I am turning 61 in two weeks.
The Ramsey Show
Normal Is Broke and in Debt. Do You Want To Be Normal?
And I have been good with my money all along, but I have failed to have a retirement fund. And I'm wondering at this point what I can do so that I can retire maybe at 67.
The Ramsey Show
Normal Is Broke and in Debt. Do You Want To Be Normal?
I have no retirement fund, but I do have... Cash, and I have no real debt. The only debt I have is about $9,000 that I took out a 0% interest loan and did some updates on my house.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
We're just two patriots who love our country, who served our country, and not just in the military, but also in politics. And we're here to tell it like it is.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
The Peter Navarro who said recently that tariffs are not taxes. They're taxes on like other countries, but not on us or something like that. And I was like, that is just the opposite.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
Absolutely. And one of the reasons that I wanted to partner with Denver to do the show was that, you know, Denver ran as a Republican. He stepped up in 2018 when I stepped up because we needed better leaders in this country. And we had something to give back to this country and make sure that Americans know the truth.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
All right? And so let me break it down a little bit, okay? Sure, break it. One, because they say on the right, all right? And I'm just pointing at you because, you know— Wait, am I in the—where am I in the shot?
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
They say, hey, these tariffs are going to restore the industrial base. Right. Okay. Maybe, but not for a really, really, really, really long time. All right. And it's not going to happen overnight. And and and I would argue that under the last administration, which was Democratic administration, we were starting to do that with some good policies to begin with. OK, that's number one.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
Number two, these tariffs are going to replace income tax. That's what your your buddy Navarro said. Right. No, they won't. They're not going to replace income tax. And Americans are getting taxed twice, right? Because we're going to have income tax and we're going to have the tax that is the higher prices that we're going to all suffer through because of these tariffs.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
And number three, Trump says and Trump's people say that we're going to pay off the U.S. debt with these tariffs. Now— If you know anything about deficits or debt, you know how freaking laughable that statement is. It's not even close. Not even close. This is a tax on Americans.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
It's a tax on the, you know, working class Americans because we spend on things and we have a higher percentage of our income as, you know, spending on those things. And all of the prices are going to be higher. This is just stupid.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
Can't do it. We'll have a show on that to make the graphs complete.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
Here's something that Peter Navarro just said. Tariffs equal tax cuts. And when I read that, I was just laughing because, you know, that's when my kids think that money that comes out of the ATM is free. Like, that's the same. Tariffs do not equal tax cuts. The answer is no, they do not equal tax cuts. It's the opposite. This will actually hurt Americans in their wallets. It's going to happen.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
I like Denver because he's got a tremendous background in new technologies and AI. He was an intelligence officer in the Air Force. And now... Probably even more impressive is that he owns and operates, but he's not the master distiller of a very cool distillery in Virginia. But today, what are we drinking on our very first episode?
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
And here's the thing. Trump ran on lowering prices. And here's the question I want to ask you. Has anything been lowered? No. Egg prices been lowered?
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
We're just going to increase the prices because that's what tariffs are going to do. That's what tariffs do. When you impose a tariff on another country, you're imposing a tax on that other country. Guess what they do in response? It's tear soap. They impose another tax on us. And that's you and me buying their products.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
So just recently, Canada, right, took off all of their bourbon from Kentucky off the shelves. What does that do to the bourbon industry in Kentucky?
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
And here's the thing. When you listen to Donald Trump and he says— Ah, tariffs are going to make us great again. We're going to have so much cash. It's going to be great. We're going to be rolling in the dough. You know, whatever he says. You know what I'm talking about. I think people need to know that's bullshit. Remember, he said Mexico would pay for the wall. Did Mexico pay for the wall? No.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
So he's lying. The additional costs will not be paid by other countries. They will be paid by Americans. Prices will go up. You know, our biggest trading partner, our biggest trading partner is what now?
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
So to put all the, where do we, what do we get from Mexico?
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
Yeah. We got a lot of fruits and vegetables. All that stuff's going to go up. That's right. Canada, we got a lot of crude oil. All that stuff's going to go up. So all those prices are going to go up. Wait till we have the avocado riots in the United States. I want my heart-healthy avocados now. And here's the other thing. Didn't Donald Trump, wasn't he the one that negotiated the update to NAFTA?
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
NAFTA was the North American Free Trade Agreement that was negotiated by Clinton. Back by Bill Clinton back in the 90s. And that that was actually, in my opinion, a very good deal. And it was with I mean, we need to have another discussion. OK, with Canada, with Canada and Mexico, which are our largest trade partners. They are. And Donald Trump negotiated that again to the USMCA.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
Yeah, and I still think that there are a lot of Americans that are kind of like, well, you know, kind of Trump knows what he's doing and we got to do these tariffs for a while because we got to curb illegal immigration and all that. Look, folks, there's ways to curb all these stuff without putting a massive tax on Americans.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
All right. Good deal. Last topic. Do you want to talk—
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
Well, the best peace deal, in my mind, would be for Russia to get the heck out of Ukraine. And I think that's what the Ukrainians have wanted the entire time. There is no... both sides here. And that has been, I think, the biggest shift in the last few months since Trump has become president. The messaging that Republicans, that Marco Rubio, J.D. Vance,
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
Donald Trump are trying to push out there is that there should be both sides here. Both sides are good and let's just come to a peace deal. No, no, no, there are no good, both sides are not good here. We have one country that invaded, invaded another country. We have one country that is bombing civilians. Not, you know, of another country.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
We have one country that is basically on a daily basis instituting war crimes. You know, what they've done to civilians in Bucha and other places, you know, lopping off heads. These are not—they're not all the same.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
We have been on the side of the good guys here, on the side of democracy, on the side of our partners, on the side of standing up for the, in my opinion, the world order that the greatest generation built for us. OK, and the other side is Vladimir Putin and the Russians that are doing unspeakable things to the Ukrainians.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
And so now we have a president that has come in and has basically said, hey, Ukraine, why don't you just give up 25 percent of your country? And the Ukrainians are not wanting that because they don't want to give up their country. And frankly, I don't think they should have to give up their country. Now, we have been giving the Ukrainians some weapons and some aid.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
So has Europe to defend themselves. And why is that so important? If you're somebody that's like, I don't even know where Ukraine is on a map. We don't do that. If we don't give them the weapons that they need and Europe doesn't give them the aid that they need, Russians are just going to take over. And they're not going to stop in Ukraine. They're going to go elsewhere.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
They're going to be emboldened by this. This is exactly what happened in the 1930s when we looked, our country, you know, along with many in Europe, looked at Adolf Hitler and said, maybe we'll just give him a little bit of land here and see what happens. No, no, no. That's not how this works.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
And so, yeah, it's a long way for me to say that what they're trying to do right now is, in my opinion, not the right way to go.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
And look, here's the thing. Vladimir Putin, by the way, is not winning.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
I'm sorry. But if you need like 10,000 North Koreans to help you out on the battlefield, you ain't winning.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
We were on the side of war criminals. Yeah, absolutely. Congratulations. United States is now on the side of war criminals. How does that make you feel? I'll tell you what, as somebody that served my country, that doesn't make me feel really good right now.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
And so every episode, we're going to be talking about bourbon. We're going to be talking about whiskey. Why? Because, let's face it, folks, we need a little bit of this to get through what we're getting through in our country right now.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
Amen. And we're here to talk about what you should know as Americans, especially on matters of national security. And this is an age where a lot of people don't believe corporate media. So we're going to talk to you about our experiences and what's going on in the world.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
So let's get started, all right? We're going to talk about some important topics that are going on in our country. The first one that I wanted to tackle was these massive cuts that the current administration is implementing that's hurting, in my opinion, the veterans, the VA, right? And look, the biggest thing from my perspective, the first thing, and I'm interested in yours, is number one,
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
Okay, so Donald Trump and his VA secretary and then the Elon Musk doge people who have clearly never served their country in uniform and have no idea what that really means are sweeping through all the agencies and they're going to the VA and they are talking about cutting 80,000 jobs at the VA. And the current secretary of the VA says, hey, stand by. There's major changes. Get used to it.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
But don't worry, veterans. It's not going to affect your health care. Let me just say right off the bat, that is total bullshit.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
Well, Elon says cut. And Doug just rolls along with that. Of course. But here's the thing. I mean, you cannot cut 80,000 workers and expect better health care outcomes. It just doesn't work that way. It doesn't. And here's what annoys me. The VA and a lot of people say, well, hey, how come you can't just privatize veterans health care? Well, number one, there's no big calling to privatize.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
There are some right wing veterans groups like that were led by Pete Hegsath and many of the current, unfortunately, assistant secretaries of the V.A. who always wanted to privatize the V.A., They could never do it. Why? Because there's no broad calling to privatize the VA from veterans or from the American public. It's always an eyesore to them, right? Because what is VA health care?
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
It's universal health care for veterans. It's socialized medicine, and it works. Now, it's not perfect.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
Now, my husband and I both get our health care through the VA. And we will tell you, you know, it's not perfect. But in our region, it's great. They do tremendous work. But it's, you know, every region is different. And we have to concede that. But we have to make it better. not throw it away.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
Here's the thing I want to ask you, though. Right. Why—because you're a Republican. You know all these guys. I do. Why are they doing this? Why are they—because clearly it's going to hurt vets. It may not hurt vets in proportion to our age. It may not hurt sort of younger vets as much. But a lot of older vets— really rely on the VA.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
My uncle, for example, is a Vietnam vet who had an illness related to Agent Orange. And he got a lot of care later on in his life dealing with that. That is not something that you get from the local clinic. And that's another thing that a lot of, I think, Americans need to understand is the VA helps veterans specifically blast injuries, traumatic brain injuries,
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
Things that only, I mean, you don't get exposed to Agent Orange in civilian life. You don't get exposed as much to toxic fumes the way we were exposed to toxic fumes in Afghanistan and Iraq. That, by the way, the last administration passed the PACT Act that allowed veterans of our generation to get health care from. And now they're basically trying to undermine all this. Why are they doing that?
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
Why even get into that position? You want that position so bad. And then when you get into it, you basically just throw all of your morals and principles away to keep the position. What's the point? I mean, the Republican Party used to be the party of national security, used to be the party of, hey, I'm going to stand for veterans. And now they're just A-OK with cutting veterans' health care.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
And here's the other thing about being a veteran. And yes, you and I are both veterans, so maybe don't take this the wrong way for people that are watching, but here's my belief. We ask people to sign the dotted line. for four years of their life, at least four years of their life. At least. Put on a uniform, go through a tremendous amount of pretty hard shit, okay, in training.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
Maybe put your life at risk and go into harm's way. You don't know if you're gonna go, but you might. And you could be a logistician, you could be an admin person, and you can be in harm's way. It does not matter what your, quote, MOS is. You sign the dotted line for four years. You basically give up your rights.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
And in return, we give a handshake deal to these less than 1% of Americans that do this. And that handshake deal is a little more than a handshake. It used to be an actual promise. Prior to the Trump administration, it was a promise. And that promise says, we're going to give you some GI benefits. We're going to give you some educational benefits.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
You might get your college paid for, depending on what state you're in, right? We might give you a better home loan, a better rate on home loan. Yeah, I've used it. You know, we might give you preferential treatment on getting a federal job if you get out. But the biggest thing we give people, the biggest thing is you're going to get health care for life, quality health care for life.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
And right now, the attack on that is what is making me very upset.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
Yeah, the F-4 and the F-14 were called Rios. But in the F-18, we call them Wizzos.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
Yeah. And the final thing on this, just for people, I mean, when you walk into the VA and your therapists, the people who are doctors and nurses, have to greet you at the counter because we fired all the people that we think are, quote, non-essential. I mean... That doesn't make a good running health organization.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
We're firing people right now that are doing things like making sure our health records that from the active duty get into the Veterans Administration. I mean, these are important things for health care. I mean, I'm not an expert, but like... Just the blanket firing of people just makes me really upset. And also because these are people that, you know, they're caring for veterans.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
You know, they could be out there doing lots of things, but they care about, you know, the folks that serve this country.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
Tariffs. All right. Look, this is a national security podcast, and we're going to talk a lot about national security, intelligence, the military, all that stuff. However— Tariffs affect all of us. It affects our economy. And I just got to say, this whole idea of putting tariffs on Mexico, Canada, all of our partners and allies, unprovoked for no reason, is just galactically stupid.
Truth in the Barrel
Launch Day | Live From Bourbon County
I mean, we are like, it's almost like he's doing the opposite of what you would do to help growth in our country, in our economy. What's going on here?
Very Scary People
Ep.2: The Root of Evil
Mein Vater hat leider keine großartigen Entscheidungen mit Geld gemacht. Er war immer so, Tom was a little frivolous. Apparently he bought a boat once that had a hole in it and he patched it up and he would take the kids out on this little fishing boat. I also know that Tom, he was really into guns.
Very Scary People
Ep.2: The Root of Evil
That's when the other kids were, you know, riding bikes. Doing the higher level education kind of thing. You know, we were sent to a drama club and Dinge wie Musik und Dinge, die dein Gehirn übertragen. All die Verantwortung, die Lenore zu Beginn auf Tom gelegt hat, hat sie auf David gelegt.
Very Scary People
Ep.2: The Root of Evil
Und mein Bruder war sehr intelligent, bis er nicht mehr zwei Jahre in der Schule war. David hat auf alle Hoffnungen und Träume von Lenore geliefert.