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One Wisconsin City Beat Back A Data Center

April 20, 2026 Marianne Dhenin, Next City. , , ,
A small Wisconsin city has just notched a big win in its fight against a proposed data center, thanks to grassroots community organizing and support from a growing statewide coalition. And to help guide other communities facing similar challenges, organizers in Menomonie have helped develop a toolkit for taking on hyperscale data centers. “It’s like whack-a-mole; you knock out one [data center], and another just pops up,” says Blaine Halverson, an organizer in the city of about 16,800 residents. “We’re trying, in real time and against the clock, to do something to protect our community, and now we’re trying to help other communities do that proactively.”

Want To Resist A Data Center? Organizers Share How They Did It

April 20, 2026 Derek Seidman, Truthout. , , , ,
The prolific construction of massive data centers that house the physical computing power for artificial intelligence (AI) is galvanizing resistance in localities across the United States. Communities are fighting back against the billionaire tech and financial power behind these projects and their numerous harms, from their noise and pollution to their hyperconsumption of water and electricity. Truthout has been covering the corporate interests behind the data center boom and local resistance to data centers. In this roundtable, we brought together representatives from three campaigns across the U.S. to share their experiences

Wisconsin City Passes Nation’s First Anti-Data Center Referendum

April 10, 2026 Tyler Katzenberger, Portside. , , , ,
A small Wisconsin city home to a data center project backed by President Donald Trump voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to restrict future data centers, in a first-of-its-kind referendum that backers said could offer a blueprint for AI infrastructure opponents around the country. Voters in the Milwaukee suburb of Port Washington approved the measure by a roughly 2-to-1 margin, according to unofficial results. City residents who sponsored the voter initiative said it marks an escalation of tactics to oppose the massive facilities needed to power artificial intelligence and could inspire activists in other towns to follow suit.

Grassroots Organizers Offer Blueprint For Beating Back Data Centers

February 15, 2026 Derek Seidman, Truthout. , , ,
Data centers are big business. Around 3,000 new data centers — huge buildings that house the computing power that props up the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) — are currently being built or planned across the U.S. Some speculate that global spending on data centers could hit $3 trillion by 2029. Corporate interests — from energy firms and construction companies, to real estate businesses and utilities — are looking to cash in. But private equity — that powerful and opaque slice of Wall Street, run by mega-billionaire founders, focused on private investment and outsized profits — is an especially outsized force driving the data center boom, pouring billions into construction deals while also positioning itself to profit from supplying AI’s insatiable energy demands.

Crackdown On Immigrant Workers At Cheese Factory Triggers Backlash

September 2, 2025 Ruth Conniff, Wisconsin Examiner. , , , ,
“This fight is all of labor’s fight,” Kevin Gundlach, president of the South Central Federation of Labor, declared at a “solidarity dinner” for 43 immigrant workers who recently lost their jobs at a Monroe, Wisconsin cheese factory. “Even Wisconsinites who don’t know about the story, should know in a cheesemaking state we should support cheesemakers.” The workers, some of whom labored for more than 20 years at W&W Dairy, were told in August they would have to submit to E-Verify screening and confirm their legal status in order to continue their employment after a new company, Kansas-based Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), bought the cheese plant.

Afro-Indigenous Man To Receive Nearly $7 Million For Wrongful Conviction

June 4, 2025 Darren Thompson, Last Real Indians. , , , , ,
Milwaukee, Wisconsin — On May 13, the Milwaukee Common Council approved a $6.96 million settlement for the wrongful conviction of an Afro-Indigenous man who spent 18 years in prison. Danny Wilber, an Oneida Nation of Wisconsin citizen, was convicted for first-degree intentional murder in Milwaukee County for an incident that occurred in Jan. 2004. The wrongful conviction settlement is the second largest in Milwaukee’s history, and is the result of a federal lawsuit against the City of Milwaukee and nine former Milwaukee police officers alleged to have violated Wilber’s constitutional rights. “The Milwaukee Police Department knew Danny Wilber was innocent—and they framed him anyway," said Lacey Kinnart, Wilber’s partner for more than a decade, in an interview with the LRI Native News Desk.

Activists Rally And Die-In At Local War Manufacturing Conference

May 15, 2025 Fight Back! News. , , , , ,
Pewaukee, WI – On the afternoon of May 13, dozens of anti-war and pro-Palestine activists held a rally outside the Wisconsin Defense Industry Council (WDIC)’s inaugural conference at the Ingleside Hotel in Pewaukee, a suburb of Milwaukee. The rally spoke out against the WDIC’s stated mission, to increase the influence of defense manufacturing in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Defense Industry Council was founded in December 2023, mere months after the genocide ramped up in Palestine – and just in time to capitalize and profit off the mass deaths of the Palestinian people. This timing has not gone unnoticed in Wisconsin.

FBI Arrests Judge Who Blocked ICE From Detaining Immigrant

April 26, 2025 Chris Walker, Truthout. , , , ,
On Friday morning, FBI Director Kash Patel announced on X that the FBI had arrested a state judge in Wisconsin, allegedly over her efforts to keep Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents out of her courtroom while she was adjudicating a case involving an immigrant they were targeting. Patel bragged about the arrest on social media, then deleted the post, which claimed there was evidence of Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan “obstructing an immigration arrest operation” on April 18. “We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be,” Patel wrote.

City Asked To Support Policies To Defuse Threat Of Nuclear War

April 3, 2025 Bill Christofferson, Shepherd Express. , , , ,
From start to finish, a nuclear war could last only 72 minutes, killing five billion people, destroying the climate and civilization, perhaps the entire planet. It’s a chilling thought, which explains why most people choose not to think about it. Others are moved to do something to try to prevent that, no matter how uphill the struggle or how long the odds of eliminating nuclear weapons and the existential threat they pose. In Milwaukee, a coalition of 18 peace, justice, environment, religious and community organizations is urging the city’s government to take a stand and call for some common-sense national policies to reduce the threat.

Milwaukee Mobilizes Over 1000 For International Women’s Day

March 10, 2025 Fight Back! News. , , , ,
Milwaukee, WI – Over 1200 people joined the 4th annual International Women’s Day celebration organized by the Milwaukee IWD Coalition, a broad coalition consisting of numerous grassroots organizations. This year’s event began with a rally, followed by a brief march to the Milwaukee Turners, an historic building with a progressive socialist history that is located on Vel R. Phillips Avenue, named after a trailblazing civil rights leader from Milwaukee. At the Turners, the event transitioned to a panel discussion with various organizers, and a keynote address by Alondra García, a public school educator and immigrant rights activist.

Wisconsin Students Charge UW Board Of Regents With Genocide

December 9, 2024 Fight Back! News. , , , , , , , ,
Madison, WI – In a show of student power, nearly 50 protesters marched into the UW board of regents meeting Thursday, December 5, to put Palestine and divestment on the Finance Committee agenda. This latest militant action comes after a large-scale administration failure to uphold the Madison and Milwaukee encampment agreements on disclosure and divestment from apartheid Israel. Despite the freezing temperatures, the students opened with a rally outside the event hall. During the rally, SDS and Freedom Road Socialist Organization member Kayla Patterson told the crowd, “The simple truth is that the board of regents stands on the wrong side of history.

Wisconsin Unions Score Major Win With Court Ruling

December 3, 2024 Scott Bauer, Portside. , , , , ,
Madison, Wisconsin — Wisconsin public worker and teachers unions scored a major legal victory Monday with a ruling that restores collective bargaining rights they lost under a 2011 state law that sparked weeks of protests and made the state the center of the national battle over union rights. That law, known as Act 10, effectively ended the ability of most public employees to bargain for wage increases and other issues, and forced them to pay more for health insurance and retirement benefits. Under the ruling by Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost, all public sector workers who lost their collective bargaining power would have it restored to what was in place prior to 2011.

Milwaukee Demands Community Control Over Jail Audit

December 2, 2024 Fight Back! News. , , , , ,
Milwaukee, WI – On Monday, November 25, the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression held a press conference to comment on the recent findings of the jail audit that was released the week before. Two inmates’ mothers, Laquita Dunlap and Kerrie Hirte, spoke of their fights for justice and accountability. The audit was conducted with input from fewer than 40 inmates, and with no public transparency or input whatsoever. The public expected to hear a preliminary report in December with the full audit report coming in 2025. Instead, the entire report was released suddenly and without any forewarning in November of 2024.

Wisconsin Approves Pipeline Reroute Near Bad River Reservation

November 29, 2024 Ray Levy Uyeda, Prism. , , , , , ,
According to Indigenous water protectors, it’s not a matter of whether a pipeline will rupture and leak, but when. The federal government’s own data supports this, with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration reporting that there were 1.5 incidents per day in 2023. But in northern Wisconsin on the Bad River Reservation, the incontrovertible claim that the safest way to build a pipeline is not to build one at all isn’t being heeded. On Nov. 14, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) granted the Canadian pipeline corporation Enbridge the permits needed to proceed with a plan to build a 41-mile section of pipeline around the Bad River Reservation.

Not In Our Nursing Homes

October 31, 2024 George Goehl, In These Times. , , ,
Merrill, WI — When the phone rang, it was 11 p.m. Still, Gene Bebel, farmer and retired school principal, picked up. It was Al Curtis, a one-time special education teacher and now resident at Pine Crest Nursing Home, a county-owned facility in Merrill, Wis., population 9,000. Curtis was angry: He’d gotten word that Pine Crest was on the chopping block, with the county board looking to privatize it. Bebel, age 84, leapt into action. He first contacted Judy Woller, who for years had run a support organization for victims of domestic violence in this rural county, and who had a reputation as someone who stood up for others. The two began to organize to save Pine Crest, a Lincoln County institution for nearly 70 years.
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