Another Birthday, Another Death Watch (Hour 3)

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Now, for my Lake Minnesota studio, here is the founding editor of UpMorth News, Pat Craiglow.

And welcome back.

It is 8.06 on a Tuesday morning.

It's August 5th, 8.25.

And coming up, we will be talking to Chad Holmes from 989 WXCO.

about stories he's following in the Wasaw area.

And in our 830 half hour, we'll be talking to Shali Pittman, news director at Civic Media about the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act.

I know it seems like we just talked about the 60th anniversary of Medicare Medicaid.

It was a busy time in the summer of 65.

Making things happen that would be good for the nation as a whole.

Obviously, those things have been under assault ever since then from a segment of the population.

trying to convince another segment of the population that the things that are good for them are actually bad for them.

When they're not, they only help the small set of the population.

But before I lose you, we will be talking all about what the attacks on the Voting Rights Act mean, even here in Wisconsin, with Charlie Pittman coming up in just a bit.

But first, let's get that updated forecast from meteorologist Brittany Merleau.

Parker Olsen is here as well producing this fine shindig from Madison Studio A2, where if he had a window looking outside, and he does not, but no.

He'd see the smoke beginning to dissipate out there.

Brittany, what is your situation?

I think I see something from your coming from your right that appears to be sunlight out a window or is that do you

actually?

I can I can see half and half.

I can see the smoke kind of sitting there lower and then I can see a blue sky if I look straight up.

Now, I've got better air quality than a lot of cities in Wisconsin right now.

I'm

at a moderate.

Even Eau Claire, Green Bay and Milwaukee are now at unhealthy for sensitive levels.

So you're pushing that 100 to 150 AQI.

It's starting to go up as we move into our afternoon.

So my guess is this could be extended again through at least tomorrow afternoon.

I don't see those winds starting to hit 15, 20 mile per hour until tomorrow afternoon as well.

So.

But that changes

is coming.

Yeah, but then there is keep paying

us.

That's right.

Finally.

Okay.

So we've got a low pressure system that's building off in Wyoming, Colorado kind of area, and it is going to be moving in a warm front.

Right.

So first it's going to kick up the winds, get that wildfire smoke out of here.

Then it's going to heat us up, bringing in some muggy and humid conditions.

In fact, it's going to get very hot and humid as we go into Friday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, pushing near 90 degrees on those days.

So the comfortable dry conditions are changing.

It's also going to turn into an active, wet, stormy kind of pattern too, especially this weekend.

We've got a big cold front that wants to move through on Saturday.

And also, like I said, that warm front moving in on Thursday.

So two chances for rain moving by and then, of course, temperatures changing.

So upper 70s to low 80s today and tomorrow.

And then that heat and humidity really starts to build.

But the trade-off when we have the heat and humidity and the storms, no more wildfire smoke.

So I suspect maybe 24 hours left of this, but it has been the longest stretch ever that we've ever dealt with for air quality alerts.

Uh, yes, exactly.

It's not been, it's not been fun.

Shall, shall we say, but again, it's out of our control and you know, everybody

should

be coping with it as best they can.

And eventually we'll get to open up the windows full time again.

Just, just, you know, as long as we get that before the snow falls.

Seriously.

Or I'm going to be opening it while it's falling.

I don't care anymore.

At that

point.

Yes.

If we don't have the smoke as an issue, I will absolutely take it.

All

right.

Thank you very much.

Have a great day.

You

too.

All right.

Let's turn now to Chad Holmes from 98.9 WXCO joining us as well.

You can hear him throughout our morning show doing some of the local cut-ins or you can catch on the Civic Media app as well.

Not to mention all the sports that he does.

He will sometimes do play-by-play three games at a time just because he can.

He's that good at this.

And it's coming, isn't it?

Play-by-play season for you once again.

It's actually...

a significant day because today is the first day of high school football practice.

Oh, yes.

Was

anybody up there doing stuff at midnight overnight?

No.

Okay,

good.

I don't think so, at least.

Jimmy Casca

talked about that.

He said there were some schools, you know, that actually do something to 1201 because the rule says, you know, August 5th, it doesn't say when.

So I'm, and I was, I was chatting now.

I'm like, that's, that's a little over the top.

So glad to hear that you don't,

you're not aware of any by you.

No, but I'll be heading out later today and getting that first little dose of some football action.

They're not going to be putting the pads together yet.

They're just handing out equipment today and then starting that first practice.

But it's an exciting time because a week from Friday is the scrimmages and then two weeks from Friday, actually two weeks from Thursday, we'll be kicking things off.

So not too far off.

No,

not at all.

It's funny because I can hear in your voice the relief when a season comes to an end, like you're going to get a little bit of time off, and then they can again hear in your voice like, it's go time.

It's time to get back on it.

Which tells me the seasons are spaced almost just right, almost at a Goldilocks point for a guy like you and maybe for the coaches and everybody else as well.

Yeah, I think so.

I think actually, I was actually talking to a current coach

who was interviewing in a different capacity.

And I was saying that back in the past, there used to be a little bit more time between the fall in the winter and the winter in the spring.

And I think that was better.

But nowadays, they basically go together.

And I think that's, especially with the multi-sport athletes, that can be a lot on the plate.

And they're asked to do a lot.

So I think that would be nice to have, I think, a little bit more of a gap.

It is what it is.

Yeah, that's right.

You deal and that's what you do so well.

What you've been talking about in some of the local reports there at WXCO.

This week has been so far a very positive week and I was actually thinking about this.

I have not

Mentioned Donald Trump once I've not mentioned how's that feel Robin boss once or anything like that It's been I've been focusing on a couple of really I think positive stories yesterday.

I had a Person a young person from Athens and she's actually Miss Marathon Coney, Wisconsin, but it was not about her pageant activities

She decided that she's somebody from Athens and she decided that she wants to start an annual event where folks donate school supplies and then she is able to give these school supplies on Saturday, August 18th to kids and families where I need.

And it was really just such a wonderful idea, wonderful thought.

And so if you

want to hear information on that or get information on that, go to our podcast page, go to wxco.fm and go to our news segment and look at the morning report from yesterday.

I got all sorts of information on how you can, number one, listen to our conversation, then number two, also be able to contact Alicia Hoffman who is in charge of this and be able to make a donation and I think do something really, really good as we begin another school year.

And so far today and actually today,

that's been one of those.

You don't really want to do this where you have three different segments in the same interview, but based on my times here for the local reports, we've had two of the three segments where yesterday I had a chance to talk to a member of the Wasa East faculty and also a family member of a former Wasa East school district member, Wasa East graduate named Laura Morris.

Passed away in November of last year after a brave battle with cancer Very young just in her early 30s two young children young husband, but also she was a Soccer standout when she was at East she went on to become a teacher at East and a member of the wasa school district team and one of her Coaches back when she was in school and then one of her colleagues when she returned to the wasa school district was able to

decided that he wanted to, Ken Smith is his name, Ken Smith, soccer coach at East, teacher at East, in the East District, decided to start a GoFundMe to have a scholarship in honor of Laura Morris, given out to a Wasa East student who have been or are being affected by cancer.

And along with Ken today, we're hearing the interview,

Alison Oliphant is the sister of Laura Morris.

So we have been going through that discussion, obviously, with a longer discussion and talking about the incredible courage that Laura Morris showed during this battle because she was in public with it, talking about it on her social media.

And the way that she was able to really be a positive force in this battle that ultimately she

passed away from last November.

And this idea of having the scholarship is such a wonderful one and the response has been truly amazing to see so many folks that are donating to this scholarship fund.

And we're just trying to do our best to publicize this as well.

And it's really been a couple of days where, you know, sometimes you feel like, you know, there's maybe not as much goodness as we once thought there was.

But as Laura Morris' sister said in our conversation, just as she said, people are really good.

People really, I think in their souls, are solid individuals who will do the right thing.

And I just think that sometimes there are forces pushing against that at times.

And I think it's nice to be able to do something to maybe push the other direction.

And for folks, we still have one more segment to go at 822.

So if you want to flip over to WXCO,

You can hear the conclusion of our conversation.

And also, you can hear it all in one sitting on our podcast page.

And also, I'll have a link to our YouTube channel where we recorded it as well.

And you can see and hear it coming up this morning as well.

You just get all that on the Civic Media app.

You just go on the app and go look for WXCO.

You can also go through the website, civicmedia.us that enables you to have these good conversations.

And I'm glad you're able to have them.

I know that most of the time we get worked up about things in the

And I got a list over here at any point if we want to get y'all fired up I

know I know I know I know it's gonna be soon enough It's like because it's all part.

It's all part of the of the brew I mean that's what we try to do, but I think it's at certain points.

It's really good not to just get

into that mind space all the time and to also be able to talk about, I think, things that really do affect our lives in a positive way here in Central Wisconsin.

Yeah, we need those occasional reminders, you know, that that most people appear to be inherently good or capable of doing good things and will rally together at a time.

My

my role I've always seen, sometimes it's encouraging people to focus on the good stuff, but oftentimes I kind of feel like a wet blanket and saying to people, yes, it's good to have the good news stories, but resist the temptation to turn your back on all of the bad stuff that's going on out there because that's how bad people, and they're out there, get away with what they're doing as they just expect people to get.

Turned off and tune out and all of that.

So by all means embrace the good that's out there But you know, I appreciate that people still keep coming back here for that like you said that wide range of information Yeah, there's local news and yeah, there's politics but and yeah, there's also the good things that people are doing But then in invariably we have to come back and talk about what's currently in the news because you know, that's how we stay healthy here That's how

we stay as a democracy and when I hear these stories

It kind of also Reminds me of how incapable of doing the job Donald Trump is because just yesterday Again, he's using Pocahontas a racial slur from the president of the United States.

I You know you you put you know, that's balancing act, but he is opening up the door to our worst angels

Yes.

And I think it's important as well to push back against that.

So again, it truly is one of these where I think it all has to be discussed.

I think there's has to be a portion to talk about certain stories that are of the more positive realm.

But boy, we do have to call out

such behavior because it's it's wrong.

That's basically it's wrong.

We got a lot of real estate here from six a.m.

onward and we're happy to cover it all and Chad Holmes get you get what he's doing over at 98 nine WXCO in the Wasaw area or on the Civic Media app or the website.

Thank you Chad.

Talk to you a little later.

You bet.

All right.

Their local update is next for some of you and when we come back in about 15 minutes.

Shaly Pittman will be here.

Civic Media News Director and we will talk about the Voting Rights Act here on the Civic Media radio network.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.

Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.

Up North News is part of Courier Newsroom.

Plenty of newsletters, state outlets, videos, podcasts, and more.

Over at CourierNewsroom.com, Mark Jacob, who joins us on Friday mornings, has a newsletter called Stop the Presses.

And this week, it's entitled, Will Journalism Become Impossible?

In the U.S., Trump's War on the Free Press follows a foreign dictator's playbook.

Again, you can get the newsletter from Mark Jacobs at StopThePresses.News or through CourierNewsroom.com.

And then there's folks saying well wait a minute is that is that hyperbole?

You know following a foreign dictator's playbook, you know trying to suppress the media and suppress political opponents and things like that that that that can't really happen, right?

I mean this isn't like, you know South Africa where on this date August 5th 1962

Nelson Mandela was put in jail and he wouldn't be released for another 28 years until 1990.

That wouldn't happen here, right?

From the Associated Press.

And a watchdog agency under the Trump administration, responsible for enforcing a law against partisan political activity by federal employees, has opened an investigation into Jack Smith.

the Justice Department Special Counsel who brought two criminal cases against then candidate Donald Trump before his election to the White House last year.

The Office of Special Counsel confirmed its investigating Smith on allegations he engaged in political activity through his inquiries into Trump.

Smith had been named special counsel by then Attorney General Merrick Garland in November of 2022.

His special counsel title is entirely distinct from the agency that's now investigating him.

The office has no criminal enforcement power, but it does have the authority to impose fines and other sanctions for violations.

It is not clear the Associated Press writes, what basis exists to contend that Jack Smith's investigations were political in nature?

But of course their Senator Tom Cotton and Arkansas Republican who had earlier this week encouraged the office to scrutinize Smith's activities and had alleged that his conduct was designed to help then-president Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, both Democrats.

That allegation right there is what you would call a textbook example of fascism having come to America.

Smith did investigate and did find enough evidence to bring two cases against Trump, one accusing him of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

And the other of, have we all forgotten about this already?

Hording classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Remember all the cardboard boxes in the bathtub?

Both were brought in 2023, well over a year before the next presidential election.

And indictments in the two cases cited what Smith and his team described as clear violations of well-established federal law.

And Merrick Garland repeatedly pointed out that politics played no role in handling these cases.

Unfortunately, they weren't handled quickly enough.

And as a result, both cases had to be abandoned by Jack Smith after Trump won last November.

with the sighting of a long-standing Justice Department policy that prohibits the indictment of a sitting president.

There was no immediate indication that the office investigating Smith had opened investigations into other Justice Department special counsels who were looking in to say, you know, Joe Biden and his son Hunter, because apparently those were not politically motivated.

The Trump White House had no immediate comment into the investigation against Jack Smith, which was first reported by the New York Post.

By the way, this counsel's office that we're talking about that's now looking into Jack Smith, it doesn't have a leader.

There was an earlier chief, his name was Hampton Dellinger.

He was abruptly fired by the Trump administration.

And then for his replacement, Trump selected a podcast host.

right wing podcast host Paul Ingrassia.

Ingrassia had praised criminally charged influencer Andrew Tate as an extraordinary human being.

Ingrassia also promoted the false claim that the 2020 election was rigged.

A U.S.

Senate panel was set to consider his nomination at a hearing last month, but then it was abruptly pulled from the agenda.

And so the special counsel law office is currently headed by Trump trade representative, Jameson Greer.

So he's the acting head of the office, as well as being Trump's trade representative.

There's a lot of people doing double duty in the Trump administration when you can only find so many people willing to do your dirty work for you.

That's why Marco Rubio has a couple of different hats on.

It's why Sean Duffy has a couple of different hats on.

I kid you not, this is an actual headline in the New York Times, NASA plans nuclear reactor on the moon and a little thumbnail picture of Sean Duffy next to it.

It's the kind of thing you would expect it's, that's from the onion, right?

It's not.

It's a New York Times headline, little picture of Sean Duffy next to the headline, NASA plans a nuclear reactor on the moon, because again, Sean Duffy is the acting head of NASA.

Again, not the onion.

actual news.

He's Secretary of Transportation and currently running NASA, at least until they can find somebody else to run it, somebody else who hasn't been caught up in, again, political mischief or misdeeds of one type or another.

But we're going to continue to have that if we're doing things like investigating Jack Smith or continuing to hound people like Hunter Biden, all to distract

from whether it's economic failings or things like the Jeffrey Epstein case where you have a president who had promised to expose all the people who were engaged in predatory activity and pedophilia until he didn't.

Until he abruptly changed his mind and he was starting to get some blowback for that and had to throw some red meat out to the base

And could there be any better red meat than to say, hey, let's investigate Jack Smith, the guy that charged me with crimes after he found evidence that I was.

Crimeing, but he didn't get me.

So we'll go get him.

That's the state of American politics right now.

Until enough, Republicans in America decided to stand up for the rule of law instead of the rule of Trump.

Civic media, civic media news director, Charlie Pittman is coming up next.

You're up north.

Brewers were winners in Atlanta last night, three to one.

The one for Atlanta was a first pitch home run given up by Quinn Priester.

After that, he only gave up one other hit.

The three was thanks to Isaac Collins hitting a three run homer.

So again, three, one.

Brewers over Atlanta.

Trevor McGill picked up his 25th save of the season.

Quinn praised her 10 wins in a row now.

Something virtually unheard of in starting pitching for the Brewers.

What is it like the third time that's been done ever?

Freddie Peralta pitching tonight as the Brewers continue their series in Atlanta.

The pregame begins at 540 on Civic Media stations across Wisconsin.

Head to the website to learn which ones are carrying the Brewers again tonight and tomorrow evening.

And then they're off before they come home for a

series against the New York Mets.

We're going to talk a bit about the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act and the way that it continues to be under assault and its potential impact on Wisconsin.

We're going to talk about that with Civic Media News Director, Shaly Pittman, but we haven't really talked to her yet on this program.

So we're going to talk to Shaly about Shaly first.

Shaly, good morning.

How are you?

Good morning.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm okay.

It's an hour earlier than Matt and Aaron air.

So, you know,

getting used to that.

Well, I mean, we didn't ask you to be here at 6 36 8 36.

I think works all right for you.

Yeah, it is one of the struggles of this program.

The struggle is real.

But in being extended to nine o'clock, we now get a chance for the the non early birds to kind of be here along along with us as well.

So let's find out more for folks that may may not have heard you on Jane show or elsewhere on the civic media radio network because you haven't been here for very long.

But you are a

I recognize radio presence in the Madison area so tell us your path from wherever you want to start to right here where we are now.

Well, thank you so much.

In Madison, definitely, yes.

I come most recently from W-O-R-T, a community radio station in Madison with the 50-year history.

I was news and talk director there.

I oversaw about 150 volunteers a week and some staff.

But W-O-R-T has a long history in Madison.

Many things at WRIT in my time there, I spent about a dozen years there in total.

I was everything from a punk DJ to a news reporter to news director.

Before that, I worked a little bit interned at Wisconsin Public Radio.

worked at the student radio station when I was in college.

So I've sort of been doing radio since I was 18.

I would have done it earlier, like some other folks here at this network, but I didn't have access.

That's all interesting, but we have to seize on the most important of those, punk DJ.

And what it was that you especially liked or continued to like to this day, or was it all just a shift that you did?

And turns out you're not a punk devotee after all.

You know, it was a time in my life where that was applicable, still like punk music, but I frequently irritated the music director by going outside the bounds of the format.

So it was punk and experimental music.

It was 2 a.m.

to 5 a.m.

I

wasn't aware that there were guidelines around punk that would get you in trouble, but apparently so.

Well, that was my whole point, isn't the whole gist behind punk music to go outside the bounds?

To

be rebellious,

yes.

Oh my goodness.

We're talking to Shaly Pittman.

By the way, that's C-H-A-L-I, which means that everybody here mistakenly called you Charlie for like at least your first month here.

Is there a story, an origin story on your first name?

Oh, thank you for asking.

Yes, I get a lot of Charlie's.

I'm okay with that, but it is Shaly.

My mom, it's not short for anything.

My mom likes, likes French.

Okay, and she was also raised in sort of a Jewish household, so Leheim so she took the two and put them together and She made it up.

My full name was supposed to be much longer with many like three middle names, but that didn't fly so

Okay, so you and you didn't feel the need to be again continuing on this rebellious streak and taking some other nickname or anything like that.

Okay

Well, I like my first name.

I'm okay with

it.

Yes, you should.

No, that's great.

So so many stories to cover that you've been covering, but I've been especially interested in the Voting Rights Act, because again, President Lyndon Johnson signed it 60 years ago tomorrow, August 6, 1965.

And

I mean, everybody knows what it was intended to do.

It was supposed to make racial discrimination a thing of the past when it comes to American elections.

And yet we find ourselves in a far different place than we would have expected to be now with an administration and a U.S.

Supreme Court so downright hostile to it.

And a lot of the roots for this come from a 2013 Supreme Court decision.

It's one of those cases where

If you tell people about the Shelby County decision, I mean, there's a sliver of the population that gets all worked up about it.

The vast majority go, what?

What are you talking about here?

So can you take us from like 2013 onward as far as the role of the US Supreme Court in what arguably has been a weakening of the Voting Rights

Act?

Yeah, the Voting Rights Act, as you said, one of those landmarks.

pieces of legislation that protect voting rights, and that election lawyers talk a lot about in point two.

So in 2013, Shelby County v. Holder made a section of the Voting Rights Act unenforceable, and that's section five, and the Voting Rights Act is split into sections, but that was the beginning.

Several years ago, a separate Supreme Court decision

further weakened it, right?

And unblocked rules that, it prohibits states from creating rules that have a disparate impact on, sorry, on voting.

And so in 2021, that further got weakened.

But section two is really the,

part of the Voting Rights Act that remains and is the most kind of powerful part of the Voting Rights Act.

It allows folks from communities, communities of color with who have historically been discriminated against and had their voting power diluted.

It allows them to challenge maps or practices that dilute the power of their vote and significantly section two

prohibits things like cracking and packing.

Have you heard those terms before, Pat?

Cracking and packing, I think more Wisconsinites are familiar with in most other states because they describe different ways that you can gerrymander a political map.

And so to bring that to the current day, you had this section of the Voting Rights Act that was especially applicable to the former states of the Confederacy, states in the Deep South, states with a history of racial discrimination.

You fast forward to

2013 and the Shelby decision and you have people saying oh we've cured racism it's all there's no more racism we do not need this anymore these states do not need federal pre-clearance anymore to do the things that they are going to do now fast forward 12 more years to the present day and we're seeing packing and cracking and gerrymandering and in Texas on a level I did not think we could ever see in these 60 years of the Voting Rights Act you have legislators

you know, leaving the state to deny a quorum similar to what we saw in Wisconsin.

And again, I don't think anybody could have predicted this back in 1965 that this would be the world we live in in 2025.

You bring up the term.

pre-clearance, right?

And there's a lot of terminology in election law and a lot of terminology around the Voting Rights Act.

So pre-clearance is this idea that states and governments had to get federal approval before changing their voting practices in certain parts that have historically been discriminated against, especially in parts of the South.

Section 5 wasn't necessarily struck down in 2013, but it was made sort of unenforceable.

Section 2 was affirmed several years ago in 2023 in another Supreme Court.

case that allowed or required Alabama to draw new lines.

So it's kind of a challenge there.

But I'm not sure if you're familiar with the name Rick Hasson.

He's kind of a big deal in election law.

He's obviously a lawyer and a scholar out of California.

And he's warning in a new article at Slate that the U.S.

Supreme Court appears poised to strike down Section 2 in Louisiana v. Calais next.

Now, that Supreme Court case has already been heard.

What's interesting about that is it's going to be re-argued before the court in their kind of next term, likely with the decision next summer.

It's not that usual for the US Supreme Court to ask for cases to be re-argued, so we have to kind of wonder what's going on there.

Yeah.

So all of this, I'm sure, has folks in Wisconsin saying, well, what does that have to do with with elections here moving forward?

But whether we're talking about redistricting or the photo ID law or other areas, what this court has been doing in terms of the Voting Rights Act and what this Congress president could be doing, Wisconsin elections could be impacted in a couple of different ways.

Couldn't they?

You know,

It could, right?

We have parts of Wisconsin that have been historically been discriminated against, especially in the Milwaukee area.

The Milwaukee area has been subject to Voting Rights Act violations under Section 2 with the claim that their voting strength was diluted.

So this was part of the Fair Maps battle.

different maps now, but everywhere could be subject to this, right?

And it's still a really important part of legislation.

Yeah.

And again, it's not just the Voting Rights Act.

There are other ways that voting rules are being impacted, you know, here in Wisconsin.

There was that constitutional amendment last fall that simply changed one word, changed the word from every

to only and that changed the way that voting in Wisconsin deals with whether people, you know, with documentation of citizenship, you know, can vote or not.

It's a we've probably taken for granted in journalistic circles, Charlie, but it's amazing the power of changing a single word, what it can have on, you know, the true impact of a state law or a constitutional amendment.

Yeah, language matters.

It changed the phrase, every US citizen aged 18 or older, who resides in an election may vote, and to only US citizens aged 18 or older can vote.

Now, why does that matter?

What does that fundamentally change?

Well, there's no municipality in Wisconsin, then I'm aware of that allows folks who are either under 18 or who are non US citizens to vote.

there are instances in other municipalities outside of Wisconsin that do allow folks to say, let's say you're not a US citizen to vote in a local school board election, for example.

And this makes it harder for any municipality to make those types of decisions in the future.

Right, and for those who wonder, well, why would that be the case?

Those municipalities in those other states have said, hey, they may not be documented citizens, but their kids still go to our schools

Why shouldn't they get a say in who is running those schools?

So in those places, they've allowed

non-U.S.

citizens to vote in those local elections, but this constitutional amendment would, or this change in the Constitution, I should say, would preclude that from ever being able to happen here in Wisconsin.

We are talking to Civic Media News Director Shaly Pittman, and it's a discussion.

Some of us will continue in a bit.

Others will be taking a break for a local update.

And then tomorrow, of course, we'll have our homeroom segment, where we will be talking all about what the Green Bay City Council and school board did.

to have greater taxpayer transparency when it comes to the voucher schools program.

So tune in for that tomorrow on these mornings powered by Up North News here on the Civic Media Radio Network.

I'm Pat Krightlo.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.

Tomorrow on the program, Casey Hicks from Wisconsin Conservation Voters will be joining Melissa Baldoff in our climate check segment.

Again, during the eight o'clock hour tomorrow here on these mornings, powered by UpNorth News on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Civic Media News Director, Shaly Pittman is with us.

And we were talking in our last segment a bit about the Voting Rights Act, one of the

One of the many things that has faced cuts or assaults by the Trump administration, another one of them being the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, something that Shali's familiar with from her time at WORT.

And so again, while you're working in the dispassionate, you know, world of news and journalism,

I'm not going to ask you to pretend that hearing about cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and its impact on stations like your former one, WRRT, you know, don't have some kind of resonance with you.

Yeah, absolutely.

You're right.

I try to be charitable to views and opinions, but the CPB cuts.

Yeah, I just have personally felt the impact of CPB grant funding and what that means and what that makes possible.

So what is the Corporation for Public Broadcasting?

Speaking of things created by President Johnson, right, this goes way back and this is a private organization that funds more than a thousand broadcasters across the country and significantly...

you know, public radio, community radio and television that are in rural parts of the country that are in underserved areas and announced on Friday that it's shutting down following congressional funding cuts.

And from a local standpoint, what does that mean to somebody like a WORT or there's WOJB up north here?

I mean,

It seems like it sounds like these are six-figure budgets that they would need to make up for if they're going to continue operations.

Yeah, absolutely.

You're absolutely right.

W-O-R-T in Madison.

the CPP funds about 12% of their budget-ish.

And so according to, they're posting online that amounts to about $113,000 this year.

WOJB, the Lakuta Ray Broadcaster in the Northwoods, which I'm sure you're familiar with, was interviewed by WORT and I listened to that.

and their station managers said they need to make up about $200,000 to stay on the air and talking with other folks in community radio kind of raised similar dollar figures that they they need to make up and by the way these are non-commercial stations meaning that unlike civic media they can't air

advertising as advertising, right?

They can air something similar called underwriting, which is very laid back.

And there are many, many rules in how you go about underwriting and the language that you choose and who you choose.

So it's a challenge, right?

It's a challenge for these broadcasters that already rely on community support and donations.

And that just makes it that much more difficult to continue operations.

And by the way,

This did not come out of thin air.

Cuts like these were talked about in Project 2025, which was something talked about a lot during the campaign last year.

And frankly, the animosity toward public broadcasting long predates Project 2025 as well, right, Charlie?

Yeah, absolutely.

I reread the sections of Project 2025, specifically the sections on the FCC, which was written by current commissioner Brendan Carr before he was commissioner.

But then there's another section by Mike Gonzalez, who was senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and author of a book called A Race for the Future, How Conservatives Can Break the Liberal Monopoly on Hispanic Americans.

It's in the section on media that Gonzalez speaks to revoking CPB funding and then eventually revoking the non-commercial status of non-commercial stations.

And that non-commercial status has a lot of protections.

It's usually on the left hand band of the dial.

There are certain inherent positives of that non-commercial status.

Anyway, he also writes every Republican president since Richard Nixon has tried to strip the CPB of taxpayer funding and you know, he says that it's become a liberal forum for public affairs and journalism, but you know That's somewhat supported by surveys, but it's open to all and it doesn't that's not the opinion of the news sections and so yeah, but yeah every

every Republican president since Richard Nixon.

Yeah, in each case, all saying that, you know, the news, you know, writ large has some kind of a, a liberal bias to it.

And just yesterday, we were talking about the anniversary of the killing of the fairness doctrine under the Reagan administration as one way for, you know, misinformation to be out on our public airways, to make it more widespread.

In our final minute, let's end on a positive note.

And that is if folks missed it earlier, there is now

officially a new state Supreme Court justice and Walsh Bradley's retirement led the way to Friday's swearing in of Susan Crawford and Shaly that that was no small feat winning that election by 10 points when you're going up against the world's richest man.

I mean we're really getting a feel for how much money got spent on this race.

Yeah, there were new FEC filings coming out just as Susan Crawford was invested ahead of her investiture into the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Those filings show that Elon Musk's PAC spent more than $27 million on petition incentives in the first half of this year, that's according to reporting from West Politics, that filing doesn't say what's behind the spending, whether that was spent in Wisconsin, but it aligns with the Supreme Court race, and Elon Musk came to Wisconsin himself.

So sure did

and dropped all kinds of checks for those petitions, quote unquote.

Shaly Pittman, Civic Media's news director with an update on several stories we've been following.

Shaly, thank you so much.

Great to talk to you here.

Thanks so much for having me on.

Oh, our pleasure.

Have a wonderful day.

And thanks to all of you for joining us as well.

Again, tomorrow we'll have our homeroom segment and our climate change segment and so much more.

So you'll want to tune in.

I'm Pat Crightlow, founding editor of Up North News, part of Courier Newsroom, a pro-democracy newsroom.

You can learn more over at UpNorthNewsWI.com.

Have a great Tuesday.

We'll see you back here tomorrow morning, 6 a.m.

here up north on the Civic Media Radio Network.

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