It's a wake-up call in more ways than one.
Time for some sh** you need to know.
All right Madison police stop black drivers at higher rates and that has drawn some scrutiny officers are once again pulling over thousands of black and Hispanic drivers in the city at disproportionately high rates and issuing many of them citations for speeding failure to yield or other trafficking fractions
Drivers of color have long been over representative than in the department's traffic enforcement, according to a Cap Times analysis.
In a statement to the Cap Times, police chief John Patterson cautioned that driving patterns can vary by time of day, location and other conditions, which can make direct comparisons among demographic groups more challenging.
In
other headlines with stuff you need to know, going over to the Middle East this morning, it turns out that Iran is trying to force shippers to comply with a new protocol for transiting the Strait of Hormuz or risk attack.
Tehran has laid out a set of new rules for vessels seeking to transit the Strait, at least according to a document that was seen by CNN.
They want pressing ahead with efforts to formalize control over the waterway in defiance of U.S.
warnings entitled Vessel Information Declaration.
That's the document and it's an application form issued by Iran's newly created Persian Gulf Straight Authority, the PGSA, and must be completed by all transiting vessels to ensure safe passage.
It was shared with CNN by Lloyd's List and another shipping industry source who wished to remain anonymous.
All right, and another piece of s you need to know a federal appeals court appeared ready Thursday to reject defense secretary Pete Hegseth's effort to punish Democratic Senator Mark Kelly over his call to U.S.
service members to refuse illegal orders.
A majority of judges on a three-member panel, so that would be two, at the D.C.
U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals spent more than an hour and a half throwing cold water on arguments pushed by the Justice Department to revive Hegseth's plans, which were
shut down earlier this year by a federal judge who said they were unconstitutionally retaliatory.
Judge Florence Pan and appointee of former President Joe Biden said, these are people who serve their country.
Many put their lives on the line and you're saying that they have to give up their retired status in order to say something that is a textbook example taught at West Point and the Naval Academy that you can disobey illegal orders.
All right.
And then here's the big story, Jamie.
You got it.
You got the big, the big one of S you need to know.
It is.
And if you've been paying attention or saw some of the headlines, it turns out that there was quite the cyber attack that shut down.
other universities, but also affected UW of Madison.
And it was done by a group called the Shiny Hunters.
And they appear to be behind this outage of the instructional software that universities of Wisconsin uses for final exams and assignments.
It's called Canvas.
And the Shiny Hunters actually targeted this system.
And it's an online course management that is used by colleges.
it's used for course material, course work, submission, exams, and grading.
All campuses of the University of Wisconsin have been affected by this hack.
University of Wisconsin Madison reported that Canvas became unavailable around three o'clock yesterday afternoon, disrupting finals preparations.
Not a great time for this to be happening.
Now UW Madison issued a statement saying, quote, we are aware of the outage and multiple teams are working with the universities of Wisconsin administration.
to address this issue on behalf of our students.
Now, if Canvas prompts you to perform any action, this is for anybody listening, this is from the University.
such as clicking a link, logging in, resetting your password, or completing any tasks.
Do not proceed, says the university.
These prompts may not be legitimate while the system is down.
We will send a follow-up notification when Canvas is back online.
This sounds like an absolute nightmare.
It's a wake-up call in more ways than one.
Time for some s*** you need to know.
Yeah man, there is some stuff you need to know.
You need to know that the U.S.
Trade Court yesterday ruled against President Trump's latest 10% global tariffs.
Finding across the board tariffs were not justified under a 1970s trade law.
The U.S.
Court of International Trade ruled in favor of small businesses that challenged the tariffs, which took effect on February 24th.
The ruling was two to one with one judge saying it was premature to grant victory to the small business plaintiffs.
The small businesses had argued the new tariffs were an attempt to sidestep a landmark U.S.
Supreme Court decision that struck down the Republican president's 2025 tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
in his February order.
Trump invoked section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows for duties for up to 150 days to correct serious, quote, balance of payment deficits or head off and imminent depreciation of the dollar Thursday's court ruling.
Found the law was not an appropriate step for the kinds of trade deficits that Trump cited in his February order.
That does not surprise me.
He doesn't do a lot of research.
He just acts.
Out of whatever whatever strikes his fancy that day so that is that's good news for small businesses hopefully and I hope they start getting those checks that they've been promised
right now
We won't get any of that money.
Don't get all excited.
It's not like a tax refund We're not gonna get out.
We're not gonna see it, but small business as well which in
Hopefully, in turn, we'll lower some prices.
Yeah, and for, you know, if you're looking at Wisconsin being a manufacturing agricultural state, I mean, this is good news.
You have to be very, very happy across this state, too.
Especially since we are a large exporter of machinery, paper products, dairy, so much more.
businesses have to pay those tariffs, which in turn means we pay those tariffs and we'll continue to remind.
Well, we continue to remind.
I don't
think
you understand economics,
Jamie.
Other countries pay those tariffs.
That's what I've been taught.
That's right.
That's right.
In
my cut rate economics class at Trump University.
There is more
stuff you need to know.
There is.
We've got a few more headlines this morning.
We're going to go back to talking about maps because it looks like...
This is infuriating.
This is infuriating and not at all unexpected.
Let's be realistic.
Tennessee's Republican-dominated legislature passed redistricting maps yesterday, eliminating the state's one Democratic, black majority congressional district a week after the U.S.
Supreme Court effectively gutted that major section of the Voting Rights Act.
The move cracks Tennessee's ninth congressional district.
which covers Memphis into three pieces, each of which contains almost exactly a third of the city's black voters.
Now these new maps mean that all nine of Tennessee's congressional districts are Republican-leaning.
The district had closely occupied the southwest corner of the state.
Now three districts snake out from Memphis' center, with two crossing the Tennessee River to reach Nashville's suburbs 200 miles away.
During a congressional session, as Democratic lawmakers spoke, the House Speaker directed state troopers to remove a section of the audience in the gallery, which had begun shouting.
One state Democratic representative described Cameron Sexton, the Tennessee House Speaker, as quote, the grand wizard in chief, and handed a Republican lawmaker a Confederate flag.
The Democratic representative offered amendments to the bill, which the Speaker ruled had been submitted in an untimely manner.
This comes
eight days, just eight days after the Supreme Court's landmark Kaleas versus Louisiana decision, which invalidated swaths of the Voting Rights Act, which had restrained state governments from drawing congressional districts that left black voters at a political disadvantage.
Despite demands from the president for conservative states to conduct mid-decade redistricting, up until this point, up until yesterday, Tennessee had refrained from taking action before the court's ruling.
I think essentially some of these states were actually just waiting for the U.S.
Supreme Court.
Tennessee is an unusual case because 75% of the residents did not want it redistricted.
Memphis is unusual.
Memphis's congressional district was not created by maps.
Memphis is an organically African-American community.
If you've ever been to Memphis, and I love Memphis, it's one of my favorite places, it is an unusual city, but it is predominantly black.
And so they had one seat.
And yesterday, if you watched any of the footage, it was repugnant watching these Republican lawmakers walk out of the chambers smirking and grinning, and one was wrapped in a Trump 2024 flag.
And they made no secret about the fact that this had nothing to do with politics, which was the which was the basis of the case in Louisiana.
This was all about getting that one black Democratic district.
gone.
They wanted all the seats.
They made no secret about it.
And they got it.
And for the governor, who said he was trying to do this to echo the will of the people, the will of the people was quite clear.
They didn't want this redistricting.
They didn't want this new map.
But they got it anyway.
And so now a city that is Yeah, it's a black city with democratic vote.
They've always voted democratic.
But
that's the point.
Now
we're going to cut that out.
Yeah, oh, I know
that's the point.
But it's just the
point.
It's like, OK, Jim Crow, thank you.
And this isn't just about one state, right?
Essentially what happened last week.
No, but
it's
the
latest.
It's the latest.
And it is the most blatant so far.
It essentially what happened last week at the US Supreme Court changed the rules of the game.
And we're going to see more and more of this as the next few months progress.
entirely, and this is what my biggest concern was when the Supreme Court made this ruling.
Because states are under their own jurisdiction to decide how these maps get redrawn, there is going to be a massive push for the midterms in November.
because they know that if there's not a massive push, if they don't change these maps, they are not going to win.
Polling would indicate in every phase that the GOP is going to be a loser when it comes to the midterm elections.
And if you are in the state of Wisconsin, if you are anywhere listening on the app and you are wondering, what do we do about this?
First and foremost, you need to pay attention to what's happening.
Right?
Because redistricting isn't always going to make headlines like this Tennessee case, but it has long-term consequences.
You also need to show up.
If there's a public hearing, if there's a local meeting, if there is feedback opportunities, these moments matter more than you think because with enough pressure.
with enough pressure sometimes you'll get somebody to cave and sometimes it's just one vote that's all you need is one person to cave and that's all it's going to take third you need to stay informed about who is actually drawing these maps and how they're doing it and finally you need to get out and vote i know i know that that sounds so repetitive and it sounds so at this point um
Easy and and like the like it doesn't matter it does you got to get out and vote because of enough of us vote Even with redrawn maps you can you can basically make your opinion heard and you can reshape things based on your vote even with a redrawn map
Well, I would imagine if you are a black voter in Memphis You are going to come out in hordes now will it make a difference because now you're split up into three Republican districts
Maybe not probably not but it will make a dent and it will show It will this there will be a statement there There will be a statement and then we got we just have to make sure that if the Democrats take control of the House and the Senate that they passed this gerrymandering law that has been billed that has been sitting in Congress for decades It's it's been there.
It just has to be passed but
Alright, let's move on to something a little closer to home because who doesn't love a good book ban?
Oh my goodness.
In 2024, parents of Menominee Falls filed a complaint with the state alleging the school district's removal of a children's book depicting same-sex families was discriminatory.
Now, two years later,
The DPI says it has limited authority to assess whether the school district of Menominee Falls violated its local policies or the law.
Oh, really?
Pass the buck a little bit.
Menominee Falls parents say DPI and the state superintendent Jill Underly took too long to rule and missed its chance to show support for LGBTQ plus families.
Chris Bucker, the spokesman for DPI told WPR that Wisconsin is a local control state.
So DPI.
is generally not allowed to overturn a district's decision to remove a specific book from its collection.
He said our role is to assess whether legal requirements and local policies were followed in a given situation.
In October 2023, the district pulled 33 books from the shelves after deeming them to quote, sexually explicit.
Here's one of the books.
Jamie, you can let me know if you think this is sexually explicit.
It's called Love Makes a Family.
It's by Sophie Beer.
It is a picture book that describes, that was described on Amazon, an exuberant, broad book.
It says whether a child has two moms, two dads, one parent, or one of each, this simple preschool read aloud demonstrates that what's most important in each family's life is the love of the family members.
I'm failing to see what's wrong with the book.
Well,
maybe I didn't read the description clear enough.
Okay, all right.
Whether a child has two moms or
two dads.
Oh, is that the problem?
That must
be the problem.
Gotcha.
Gotcha.
I'm looking at the book right now.
Like, I'm looking through... I'm looking at it
yesterday.
Very nice.
It's a very lovely book.
This is a tapestry of color and fun and... It's not
a how-to.
No.
Be in a same-sex marriage.
It's a
beautiful book.
It's about, hey, your family, no matter who you are, what kind of family you have.
It's beautiful.
But why should we tell kids that there's different families?
Why should we, why should we open kids' views up to, hey, Parker has two mommies and Brian has two daddies and Jamie has, Jamie just has a mommy and Frank, Frank was raised by wolves and is fueled by hate.
But so everybody's family is different.
But if you love your family, that's what's important.
I mean.
Let's be clear, every family in this country in 2026 looks different, right?
They really,
truly do.
Everybody's family looks different.
There is no right or wrong in how...
Obviously, there's things.
Again, you don't know what I'm saying.
I think DPI passed the buck here.
Of course.
They could have said something.
They could have said something within two years.
And even if they couldn't change it, they could have made a statement.
Because you have people from the LGBTQ plus community in your schools, in your communities, their children are being educated under your system.
They deserve at least a statement.
Yes.
While we don't agree with.
Any books being banned, we have to defer to the district.
So if you have issues, we urge you to speak to your superintendent or the school board.
That would have been the right thing for DPI to do.
They did not do that.
They fell flat and we're calling them out.
