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Welcome, welcome, welcome to MidMornings on Civic Media.
My name is Greg Buck.
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great show for you.
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Have a great show ahead of you today.
In the second hour, we're going to be welcoming Melissa Jira Grant, who will be speaking to us about her new piece in the New Republic regarding the
the effort to resist ice in the streets of Chicago should be coming on after the 10 o'clock news and then we will have audio sorbet we'll be talking about the death of bob weir and the grateful dead and asking you what is the music that you came to maybe a little bit later in life now that you love and it's part of who you are and
If you are a dead head, if you are a person who enjoys the dead or fish or any kind of jam band, I'll talk to you all day about that stuff.
That's no worries and all that.
That's a 1035.
And then at 1052, we're going to close the show out with this shouldn't be a thing, the fleeing car edition.
So don't go anywhere.
We have a great one for you.
Now to kick off today's show, we're turning to the subject of.
Renee Good, she is the 37-year-old mother of three who was shot last week by federal agents.
That agent was identified as Jonathan Roth through verified video evidence.
And it was the evidence that he provided showed, along with the video evidence we saw when it happened, what actually was going down in the face of
discussions from people like the Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, as well as the president.
We also are seeing the federal government blocking Minnesota and local officials from investigating the event.
And it seems to be investigated solely by the federal government at this moment.
But to talk more about the actual law, the legal side, as far as what kind of recourse
the municipalities the state may have.
We're going to be speaking now to our guest, Brenda Godar, who is a staff attorney with UW Law State Democracy Research Initiative.
Brenda, welcome to the show.
How are you doing this morning?
I'm doing all right.
How are you?
I'm doing well.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
Now, really, when it comes to this event,
And I asked one of our hosts here who is an attorney about the legal process or the recourse that the municipalities, the city and state might have.
What are those processes as far as can they sue the government?
Where do they seek the next step in the legal process?
Yeah, so state and local prosecutors do have jurisdiction over this, contrary to what some federal officials have been claiming.
And they do have the ability to investigate this and decide whether to bring criminal charges against the federal officer.
We don't see these cases that frequently, but it is a possible path forward.
And this is, I mean, this is set on precedence from things that have happened in the past, whether, you know,
One of the things you mentioned is that there are past instances.
Are we talking about recently with regard to, are we talking about ICE?
Are we talking about just in the past as far as precedents going back years and decades?
Yeah, more going back years and decades.
So there have been state and local prosecutions of federal officers of different types, often stemming from
claims of excessive use of force.
So for example, in the prohibition era, there were numerous cases where states were prosecuting federal prohibition agents for using excessive force in carrying out arrests or in seizing distillery equipment.
There are, for example, a couple cases where federal agents shot into moving vehicles that they believed were transporting liquor.
And in some cases, federal courts agreed
with the federal officers that they were acting reasonably and what they had done.
And so they dismissed the state court cases.
Other times federal courts came in and said, no, actually it seems like this use of force might not have been legally justified and they allowed those prosecutions to go ahead.
So there have been some cases in more recent years in 2017 and 2023, a couple cases involving federal officers using one using deadly force, another one,
police car, federal officer's car hitting and killing somebody while driving.
And those were dismissed, but we haven't seen these as much recently.
Now, where is Minnesota at right now?
I've seen the news that they are suing right now to get rid of the ICE agents, which is a totally separate lawsuit.
But where are, whether it's Minnesota, Minneapolis, where are they at right now with the next steps of possibly taking action against the federal government for what happened to Miss Good?
So right now they are in the investigation phase.
So I think a lot of folks really are wanting a quick answer on this and that is very unlikely given how complicated use of force cases can be to bring even when they don't involve federal officers.
And so what the state prosecutors and Hennepin County attorney are doing right now is working on collecting evidence and determining
ultimately with the goal of determining whether they can bring criminal charges or whether they should bring criminal charges or not.
And that is definitely hindered by the fact that the FBI has removed the state bureau of criminal apprehension from the investigation.
The FBI is no longer cooperating.
with state and local officials.
And the FBI has custody of a lot of important evidence here.
But the state AG and the Hennepin County attorney have set up their own investigation process and are soliciting information from the public to try to preserve as much evidence as possible in this case.
And that's that point you bring up is one that, you know, while not surprising at all is very, you know, telling.
Have you ever seen an instance where the federal government has worked so vehemently to
not collaborate with local government in the investigation as far as what they're seeing.
So that whether it's the state or the municipality says we have the evidence, you know, they're being blocked from this.
Have you ever seen something like this before?
So I'm not a criminal law
expert, so
I can't speak sort of broadly, but typically
you do see the FBI and states collaborating on stuff like this.
So this is definitely out of the norm.
I can't say sort of how frequently
or if
it's ever happened in the past, but it is something that is out of the norm.
It's definitely not the usual way that things proceed.
And so it could cause significant obstacles for state and local prosecutors in having the evidence that they need.
to make that charging decision.
If you're just joining us right now on mid mornings on civic media, we're speaking to Brenna Goddard, who is a, excuse me, sorry, there are a little cough there, is a staff attorney with UW laws, state democracy research initiative.
I'm always want to make sure I say that correctly, state democracy research initiative.
We are talking about the next steps for Minnesota.
And as far as seeking
justice prosecution for what happened in the streets of Minneapolis about a week ago.
And talking about the fact that while they have the ability to, they will have the ability to sue it.
There are roadblocks right now being put up by the federal government.
What are, you know, the, they're always going to be, as I said, they're, they're hurdles that you can overcome.
But what is different here as far as like, you know,
what they will need to do to try to get the evidence they need because, as you said, they're not cooperating.
And therefore, it makes it feel like this will, whether it's Minnesota or Minneapolis, it'll make them take longer to get that prosecution to be able to basically be able to create a case.
Yeah.
And I think, so first off, the officials have said that a number of key pieces of evidence
are in the custody of the FBI, including sort of on-scene interviews, shell casing, other crime scene evidence that was collected that day.
Of course, Minnesota officials can still conduct witness interviews.
They can view video footage, and they have been collecting video footage of the scene.
they can do their own investigation but some of that crime scene evidence might be hard for them to get access to.
And why that is such an issue here where you know folks say well you have have video isn't that enough to make
this
decision and it may or may not be but in use of force cases generally they are quite difficult to succeed on involving
law enforcement officers.
For example, the prosecution of Officer Chauvin.
That was a successful prosecution that ultimately led to a conviction, but it was a very, that was not the typical way that those cases play out.
That was sort
of an abnormality.
And here it's not only prosecuting a law enforcement officer, it's also prosecuting a federal officer.
And federal officers have some immunity from state prosecution.
for crimes.
And so that immunity will also come into play, which adds sort of an additional layer of difficulty to this case.
Well, and that's something that I wanted to talk about too, is because we, you know, we speak, there's been a lot of discussion about qualified immunity.
I feel like that became a phrase that I don't want to say a buzzword, but we talked a lot about it.
But also, I think then people also think, Oh, then that just means that cops.
And when I say cops, I mean, because a lot of people will just
put them all together, no matter what kind of agent or police
officer
they are.
How does that, a qualified immunity, how does that apply specifically to ICE agents?
Because some want to say, well, they're not FBI agents and they're not cops, but how does qualified immunity, that I assume applies to them as well, to a certain extent.
Actually, in criminal cases, it is not qualified immunity that is applying.
It
is a different type of immunity here called supremacy clause immunity.
And what that immunity is, is the supremacy clause in the US Constitution basically says that federal law is the supreme law of the land.
And so if federal law and state law conflict, federal law wins out.
And where this immunity came from is that in order to have that actually be the case in practice, you can't have states going around prosecuting federal officers
for lawfully and reasonably carrying out federal law.
If you could, then states could basically grind the entire federal government operations to a halt if they wanted to by just coming up with crimes for anything that federal officers are doing.
And so that's sort of where this comes from, but it still leaves open this avenue if federal officers are actually acting beyond the scope of their duties or unreasonably in carrying out those duties.
Well, and that the way you just described that was very much it feels like I don't want to use the word excuse, but it's a though their way of justifying not allowing Agents or whomever to be held accountable because they'll say well if we do this if you do it to one You're gonna do it to everybody and therefore we can't have that so therefore sorry and and if the federal government always wins out it feels like and
correct me if I'm wrong, the federal government has more power in sway than maybe a state trying to hold federal agents accountable.
I mean, I don't want to sound cynical, but that just
feels
like the deck is stacked against the state or whomever is trying to hold the federal government responsible because they'll just simply say, well, we can't do that.
Sorry, we win.
That's it.
There will definitely, that's the argument.
going to be made by the federal government, certainly, is that you can't do this because it's going to hinder our operations going forward.
But what I would say is that federal courts throughout history have found in these cases where officers seem to be using excessive force, they have allowed the state prosecutions to proceed and federal courts have frequently used language talking about the important role of states in
this dual system of sovereignty in holding the federal government accountable and it can go both ways.
It's like the federal government needs to hold states accountable.
We're going
to keep the conversation going with Brenna Gadar, who is a staff attorney with UW Law State Democracy Research Initiative.
If you want to be part of the conversation, 855-752-4842-8557-5CIVIC.
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Welcome.
Welcome back to mid mornings on civic media.
My name is Greg Bach.
I am your host.
I'm your pal, and I'm happy you are here.
We're coming to you live from Radio Park in Racine.
If you want to be part of this conversation, 855-752-484-2855-755 Civic, you can leave a comment on the live stream.
We are currently streaming on Facebook, YouTube, and the platform that we still call Twitter.
Still lots of great show ahead of you, including a discussion with Melissa Gira.
grant who is a writer and publish a piece in the new republic regarding the anti-ice of the
Resistance against ICE in Chicago and what's going down there a very very eye-opening a lot more detail than we had been we've been seeing in the in the regular media So that's gonna be coming up after the 10 o'clock news and of course audio sorbet at 1035 and this shouldn't be a thing fleeing car addition So don't go anywhere because right now we are talking to Brenda Goddard who is a staff attorney with UW laws state democracy research initiative about the legal aftermath the recourse that the states municipalities may have in the face of the murder of Renee Good who was shot to death by an
agent in the streets of Minneapolis about a week ago and we were talking about just you know the hurdles of any of any case against whether you're going to government state or federal but in the face of this particular federal government it's even harder when there's no cooperation and there is constantly a barrage of information coming our way through interviews and tweets and social media and everybody seems to know something and have an opinion.
Brenna what does the state do?
to stay away from the noise or I should say break through the noise to achieve what they believe is justice against so much opposition from every level from your uncle at the dinner table all the way to the president in the United States.
What do they do to stay on track?
I think a large part of it is just what they're already doing which is really trying to conduct as much of an investigation as they can despite the
lack of cooperation from the federal government on this and really trying to build out a robust file so that they can make an adequate decision on how to proceed on this and really explain that decision to the public.
I think that's the first thing is just sort of continuing down that path.
I think then also it's really important for officials like they have been to emphasize that this is a proper role for state and local prosecutors.
federal officials have been saying incorrectly that federal officers have absolute immunity for actions.
taken on the job or that Minnesota has no jurisdiction here.
And I think it's important for the state to continue to emphasize that it does and that this is a really longstanding and important role for states in our federalist system where we have this divide of sovereignty between the states and the federal government and both have an interest in enforcing criminal laws and ensuring that they are protecting residents.
In the few minutes we have left, Brenna, tell us about the process then, you know, as far as what's the, you know, I can listen to this all day.
I love listening to this stuff, but what's the process that we're going to be seeing going forward?
Yeah.
So if state prosecutors are the Hennepin County attorney in this case, probably, um, decide to bring charges, they would file those charges likely in state court.
And then the federal officer would.
likely seek to remove that case to federal court.
There's a law that lets federal officers move their cases from state court to federal court if they have sort of a reasonable federal law defense.
And here that defense would be a claim of federal immunity.
And that whether or not the officer ultimately succeeds on that immunity claim, that defense would probably be enough to get the case into federal court.
And from there, state or local prosecutors would still be the ones prosecuting the case in federal court.
There would potentially be lengthy litigation over whether the officer does have immunity or does not have immunity.
We've seen some of those cases take years.
And then if the federal court allows the case to proceed, it would proceed to trial in federal court.
And then that would be the process.
Will that be separate from a possible charge to the individual officer, Mr. Ross, or is that all-encompassing?
This is all-encompassing.
This would be if the individual officer is charged.
That is what that process would look like.
He would be the defendant.
The state of Minnesota would be...
the prosecutor.
And that is how that case would
play out.
OK, all right.
Well, I mean, I thank you for that.
And before we get out of here, we do have a little bit of time.
Tell us really quick.
I apologize for not asking out front, but I really wanted to get to the topic.
The State Democracy Research Initiative, what are you doing there?
What is the work that you do on a daily basis as a staff attorney?
Yeah, so we work to do research on state level democracy.
state government institutions and state public law across the country.
So we really focus on the states, which are, they get less attention than federal government in a lot of the legal world.
And so we work to fill that gap and serve as a resource for academics and courts and policymakers and others, filing sometimes briefs in court from the court briefs and state supreme courts, and then also doing a lot of published writing and media interaction as well.
Well, we thank you very, very much for that.
And I really appreciate your time today coming, coming to the show and talking about this because, you know, I personally feel with, you know, the, the, the story itself is tragic, but we have to keep our eyes on what's going on because this can, this can be what other states are going to be going through.
And they need, we need to understand the process.
If it happens here in Wisconsin, hopefully it doesn't.
And or we're going to be speaking about Chicago and knowing about
what kind of recourse the states have to hold the federal government accountable, hold these agencies accountable, is important for everyone to know and to get, and that we do have that right to pursue that justice.
Definitely.
And I think yeah, Minnesota here is really going to lay a path for what other states and other jurisdictions might consider down the road.
Brenna Gadar is a...
Staff Attorney for UW's UW Law State Democracy Research Initiative.
Thank you so much, Brenna, for being here today.
I really appreciate your time and your expertise on the topic.
I hope you have a wonderful day.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thanks for having
me.
All right, when we come back, we'll be talking about the news, including a breaking story from Children's Wisconsin and UW Health regarding gender affirming care.
But don't go anywhere.
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Welcome back to Mid Morning is on Civic Media.
My name is Greg Bach.
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I'm your buddy, your panel, and I'm happy that you are here with us today because you are fantastic for sharing your time.
If you want to get in touch with us, you can call or text the number is the same.
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757 you can leave a comment on the live stream.
We are currently live streaming on Facebook YouTube and the platform that we still call Twitter We are also coming to you live from radio park here and we're seeing me and Calvin actually Calvin.
Good morning.
By the way, I forgot to Whatever we have a guest right up top.
I always like I feel like just like it's like I and then I forget about you Calvin I never forget about you but Calvin.
How are you doing this morning?
I'm doing good.
Yeah, you know what Greg?
Hmm.
I Would feel a little awkward to have an old
conversation while I guess just waiting in the back.
So I don't have any problem waiting until we have a free moment.
Okay.
I appreciate that.
And I appreciate it.
It would be weird if I was just like, so what, uh, so, uh, you think about buying a new car and the person's just like, I have things to do.
But if you have things to do, this book, this is about to become what I call a segue, Calvin.
If you have things to do, you find yourself very, very busy and you can't listen to our show or the shows here on Civic Media Live.
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But point is you can always subscribe to the show as a podcast.
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Again, you can download this direct, download those directly to your device, listen to them anytime you'd like.
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Absolutely wonderful So yeah, those are great just great ways you can always stay in touch with us and Be a part of what's going on here in the second hour as we said, we're gonna be welcoming Melissa's you're a grant to the show She is a staff writer at the New Republic has a wonderful piece out right now about the resistance in Chicago against the ice
invasion, if you will.
But that, that we'll be talking about that piece in the second hour.
And then at 1035, it's audio sorbet.
Bob Weir legendary found one of the founders of the grateful dead died this past weekend.
And I just want to know, were you a dead head?
Do you love the dead?
Is there, are they a band for you?
Like with me, did you come to them later?
I was not a huge fan of them growing up.
And then one day I realized they were amazing.
Is there another group, another artist that you came too late in the game, but you love them now so much and you just want everyone to know about.
So tell us about that at 1035.
And then of course, this shouldn't be a thing closing out the show today.
It's the fleeing car edition.
So you don't want to go anywhere.
We have great programming still ahead.
Now I want to talk about this story really quick because we had Abigail sweats, who is the executive director of fair Wisconsin on the show about I think two weeks ago, and we were discussing.
a proposal coming down from the federal government with regard to what would happen to hospitals that offer gender-affirming care.
And they basically said that these were new rules proposed.
The story came out on the 19th of December, but they said that essentially,
The hospitals could lose Medicaid and Medicare funding if doctors continued to provide gender-affirming care to minors.
And that was a move that basically will impact our hospitals.
And it has because in the, let's see here, this is the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel coming out yesterday, Natalie Eilbert with the Byline Children's and UW Health Halt Gender Care for Minors.
What were proposed rules have apparently I don't want to say spooked or it has it has it has scared them and They are going to be pausing their gender-firming care treatment for minors according to sources with both clinics This is coming from the story in the in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel which will be in the show notes the move comes less than a month after the US
I'm sorry, the U.S.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
announced new proposed rules that would basically deny Medicaid and Medicare payments to hospitals and clinics for all medical intervention.
If they, and they did, they provided gender-affirming care services for patients 17 years and younger.
And basically,
That was the plan as we spoke with Abigail about.
And if you want to listen to that episode, you can go to civicmedia.us slash shows, look for the matinee air on air show page, find our, our interview with her going back about two weeks.
And essentially what they did was they said, if you do this, if you provide gender affirming care to minors 17 and younger, we will take away your Medicare and Medicaid access, your payments.
And as it says in the article, if that were to happen, that would shut those hospitals down because I don't know, I don't know about you, Calvin.
And we spoke about this briefly with Abigail.
I don't know of a single hospital that doesn't benefit from Medicare and Medicaid payments.
I feel like that is a very, that is a, well, it's sizable enough for, for UW health and children's to stop.
offering this care for young people.
And we're gonna have Abigail back on the show sooner than later to talk about this because gender affirming care, that phrase, those three words have been weaponized by certain individuals who either do know what it is and they're lying or they don't know what it is and they're speaking out of, well, not their mouth.
This has to this has to deal with things like gender dysphoria.
This has to do with things like psychiatric care This has to do with things with like puberty block or something that's available to children who are not who don't identify as trans like what this does and and that's the question I would have too and I would ask Abigail this question is for those young people who need certain medications that are part of gender-affirming care for trans kids Will they still be able to seek that or are they just going to block all of that?
that all those services just to protect themselves.
And see, that's, that was the point of the conversation too, is that they said that these hospitals can no longer do this.
You can no longer, this is a proposed rule.
It wasn't going down as a lot at the point.
And in fact, I don't know if it's actually even put, let me just check here.
Yeah, it was still in the proposal stage, but these two hospitals acted.
say to them, you can't do this.
Those hospitals could have easily said, we're going to do it anyways.
We want to take care of, we want to take care of patients.
Their health is what's the most important in our lives.
But then they threw in the second rule, which was if you do this, we'll take away your Medicaid and Medicare payments, which kind of leaves these hospitals at a standstill and didn't leave them much choice.
So that's where we're at right now.
I wanted to give you a,
I wanted to give you an update.
And like I said, I'd like to have Abigail back on the show sooner than later.
Sarah Benzel from UW Health confirmed to the Journal Sentinel that this has happened.
She's quoted as saying, UW Health is committed to providing high quality, compassionate and patient-centered care to our patients, families, including LGBTQ patients due to federal actions.
UW Health is pausing, prescribing puberty.
puberty blockers and hormone therapy as part of gender-affirming care for patients under 18 years of age.
We recognize the uncertainty faced by our impacted patients and families seeking this gender-affirming care and we will continue to support their health and well-being.
They'll continue supporting that but without being able to prescribe the necessary medications or the therapy that
is part of the process of a young person who is identifying as trans, who's going through their gender confirmation, essentially.
And that's back to the original point.
They are going to propose this idea as they're taking kids, they're taking four-year-olds, five-year-olds, and doing horribly violent procedures on them.
Well, that's not what's happening.
They're simply going in with their parents to seek these
Manners of gender-affirming care, but because of that because of the of the US Health and Human Services Department led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr Who by the way had very little opinion on this matter before he joined the Trump administration He was quoted as saying I need to do more research on the topic But apparently he did enough research in the past year to know that not only is it something that he had to block But he also had to punish any hospital who wanted to partake in this
It says one parent raised concerns that the clinics are abandoning ongoing treatments such as hormone replacement therapy, leaving children to go cold turkey after years of taking either estrogen or testosterone.
The parent's daughter, their parent is not identified, of course.
The parent's daughter has a puberty block or implant, a small rod inserted into her upper arm slowly releases a hormone-pausing puberty.
And so that is where the parents then are left too, is like, where does my child go?
And what does the end of this, how does that affect the child's?
health, just their physical health, not just their mental health, but their physical health.
When they're no longer on these hormones and therapies, what happens to them?
How do they seek help from their doctors if they can't go to these places?
So again, giving you a small update on what's going on with regard to that.
Again, after the 10 o'clock break, we are going to, or 10 o'clock news, we're going to be speaking to Melissa Gira Grant about the
the resistance to ICE in neighborhoods in Chicago, her new piece and the new Republican will be part of our show notes today.
I really, really suggest you read that one.
It is, it is an eye opening, eye opening article.
And we would love for you to be a part of that too.
If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please give us a call 855-752-484-2855.
757, do you have any thoughts on this?
What's going down here?
Do you, I mean, when I talk about this stuff, I think of grandpa Bob who called the show years ago to talk about his beloved grand kid and how much he loves them and how much he's there for them and how easy it was for him to just automatically love them because that's what makes their grand kid happy.
So if grandpa Bob is out there, I'd love to hear from you, but if you are a grandpa Bob yourself or you know somebody
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What am I going to say?
How can I stop this?
I got a story for you from, uh, from an article, uh, an article here that's talking.
talking about what Americans across the country are doing to oppose data centers and how successful they have become so far.
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We are currently streaming on Facebook, YouTube and the platform that we still call Twitter, still lots of great show ahead of us, including a conversation with Melissa Jira Grant, who was a staff writer at the New Republic.
She has a piece out right now called Inside Chicago's, Inside Chicago's Neighborhood Ice Resistance.
It is a...
Mind-blowing eye-opening, it gives far more detail than we're hearing in the media about not only what is happening in the streets by way of the ICE agents, but also what the people of Chicago, specifically the Southwest side, are doing to combat what they feel is an invasion, which I wouldn't disagree with.
But we're talking more with Melissa on that matter.
If you want to be part of the conversation, 8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2-8-5-5-7-5-7.
If you want to get your thoughts on this one, because we have been talking to people about this,
for months now and it is data centers, data centers.
I think if you, I don't know if they still do these things, Calvin, but if you, if you like a cloud of all the used words, I feel like data center would be one of the biggest ones because we have been talking about it here on the show and civic media has been talking about it.
I see it in the news national and state and local and people are really concerned.
And there are, I feel like there are a few camps here.
There are people who just outright do not want data centers understood.
I understand because of the, the, the, the impact of the environment impact to your utility bills.
The fact that, you know, you don't want a big building in the middle of your beautiful, maybe bucolic town.
I get that too.
There are people in the, not in the middle, but people who say that's fine, but we want transparency.
We want plans.
We want to make sure that they're not going to be stealing our water, that they're not going to be pushing their.
their costs onto our municipalities, especially for their small rural municipalities who are having a hard enough time as it is, might be trying to be sold that data centers will, you know, revitalize the area.
But, you know, that is
That's where the, the, the request or demand for transparency comes in, which actually we're seeing there are two separate bills coming out of both the Democrats and the Republicans, Madison, one looking to seek transparency on what they're going to be building, what they're going to be doing.
Another one seeking transparency on environmentalism, protecting the community from environmental impacts, utility bill impacts.
And then there's the other side, the final sides probably like build them everywhere, build one in my backyard.
You can make, make our McDonald's a data center.
I don't care, but.
That is what I'm heard in the conversations we've had.
And I think that one thing people may look at is say, I am from a small town.
I don't have a say, what power do I have?
Well, first of all, you do have a lot of power.
You have more power than you think.
And you have the power to contact your representatives, go to myvote.wi.gov, myvote.wi.gov, figure out, find out who your representatives are, call them.
If this is the topic that's top of mind for you, you tell them, you know, how you feel.
You don't want data centers.
You want more transparency.
You want to make sure that your utility bill doesn't explode.
My vote.wi.gov be part of that conversation.
Cause as we said, you have a voice, especially this year, it's an election year this year.
So keep up to speed on this kind of thing and.
We saw in Caledonia last year that the people of Caledonia voted down and you know, said no to a data center.
So there's a piece of evidence that says, all right, it is possible.
An article that was posted up for me from, I, I've never heard of this website before Calvin.
This is a new one.
Heatmap.news Robinson Myers Robinson Meyer has the, the byline and the, the title is local opposition to data centers is surging, surging.
So
are canceled plans.
And basically, I'll put this in the show notes.
But at least it says here in the article, at least 25 data center projects were canceled last year following local opposition in the United States, according to a review of press accounts, public records and project announcements conducted by, again, Heatmap Pro.
Never heard of this, I guess.
I'm gonna assume it's a website where you can see heat maps.
Those canceled projects accounted for at least 4.7 gigawatts of electricity demand, a meaningful share of the overall data center capacity projected to come online in the next years.
Now, data centers aren't going anywhere.
They're already here by the thousands.
And Wisconsin has, I believe we have somewhere in the forties.
We're nowhere near the leader.
In fact, we're below the average of states, but they are here.
Private companies are looking to invest trillions with a tee tee trillions in this in data centers for AI for you know for Farms for their their Servers things of that nature it says here's more than 500 billion may be spent this year to dot the landscape with new data centers power plants and other grid Equipment needed to sustain the explosively growing sector
that is according to Goldman Sachs.
I'm telling you all of this because I want you to look at the article two.
If you look at the article here, it gives a map or a chart of the data centers that have been canceled in 2025 versus years before.
In 2023, it was one.
It grew in 2024.
But if you look at 2025, that number exploded.
And granted, it's not hundreds, but
When we talk about the insurmountable act of going up against big business or the government 25 data centers across the country and you see that map or you see that chart that shows to me that the people's voice still has validity and if this is something that truly is concerning you it is about getting your people Organized finding out when these meetings are happening.
Look at me at the look at the agendas and then go make public comments
and hold your leaders accountable.
Ask questions.
Ask them to go for a cup of coffee and just talk to them about this.
They are your council members, town members, county board members.
They work for you.
Contact them and have those conversations.
But this to me shows that we still in this country, we still in this state have a voice to speak up for our communities and you can do that.
My vote.wi.gov.
Look up your representatives.
Tell them how you feel.
Be part of that conversation because you are the ones they work for.
So when we come back after the 10 o'clock news, Melissa Jira Grant is going to be here.
She's from the New Republic talking about her article on Chicago's neighborhood ice resistance.
Don't go anywhere.
You're listening to mid mornings on civic media.
My name is Greg Bach.
Stay tuned.
Stay close.
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