Good morning.
Whitewater will see snow today, of no more than a few inches of accumulation, and a daytime high of thirty-four. Sunrise is 7:37 AM and sunset is 4:25 PM, for 9h 02m 00s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 27.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1783, Gen. George Washington resigns his commission as commanding general of the Continental Army. On this day in 1865, after years of service to the Union (Missouri, Kentucky, Alabama, and Tennessee), the 1th Wisconsin Infantry returns home.
Worth reading in full —
Jennifer Rubin observes that The House GOP agenda is already out of date: “The House GOP agenda rests on two flawed assumptions: (1) We are on the brink of a recession, and (2) Obamacare has to be repealed at all costs, as soon as possible.
Republicans seems to have bought into President-elect Donald Trump’s portrait of American dystopia. It may have worked to gin up votes among those concentrated in disintegrating communities and lacking requisite skills to thrive in a 21st-century economy. This does not make their plight any less compelling or diminish the need to attend to pockets of distress, but they are not representative of the country as a whole. It is hard to claim the country is tipping into depression when you look at the latest data:
Gross domestic product, a broad measure of the goods and services produced across the economy, expanded at an inflation- and seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.5% in the third quarter, the Commerce Department said Thursday. The rate was revised up from last month’s 3.2% estimate, and is the strongest quarterly pace of growth in two years.”
Kellyanne Conway will be a counselor to the president, but Long Before Trump, Kellyanne Conway Worked for Anti-Muslim and Anti-Immigrant Extremists: “After years in the political wilderness, extremist groups have gained new relevance, thanks to Trump’s victory. But Conway, who is now a senior adviser to the president-elect and is likely to run an outside group to support Trump’s agenda, has for years done work for some of these organizations, lending her polling expertise to their causes and helping them shape their messaging….Following the Paris terrorist attacks in late 2015, then-candidate Trump announced his plan to ban all Muslims from entering the United States until US leaders “can figure out what is going on.” To justify his proposal, he cited a flawed poll from June 2015 that portrayed American Muslims as increasingly radical. According to this poll, 51 percent of Muslims in the United States believe they should have the choice to be governed by Shariah law (Islamic religious law) instead of US laws, and nearly 20 percent believe “the use of violence in the United States is justified in order to make Shariah the law of the land in this country.”Conway’s firm, The Polling Company, conducted this poll for the Center for Security Policy….”
Nico Savidge reports on the resposne of a national Free speech group: Lawmakers’ push to end UW-Madison course is ‘definition of censorship’: “Warnings from two Republican lawmakers that the University of Wisconsin System’s budget could be affected if UW-Madison does not cancel a planned course on racism amount to an unconstitutional attempt to stifle free speech, according to a national anti-censorship group. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which tracks campus speech policies at colleges and universities across the country and criticizes efforts to limit First Amendment rights, said the statements this week from state Rep. Dave Murphy, R-Greenville, and Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, threaten academic freedom….The anti-censorship organization — which often draws praise from conservatives who warn of what they call restrictive campus speech policies put in place by left-leaning academics — countered that it was inappropriate for lawmakers to try to shut a course down because they disagreed with it.”
What’s popular in Wisconsin? Chelsey Lewis writes that Taco dip, gingerbread are some of Wisconsin’s favorite holiday foods: “What do you call a Wisconsin party without taco dip? A failure. The party staple is the most popular “holiday” recipe searched for by Wisconsin web users on General Mills’ sites, which include BettyCrocker.com and Pillsbury.com. General Mills looked at the search data across its websites from the holiday season and compiled a list of the most popular and unique holiday food traditions in each state.”
Go ahead, Sit with Santa at the Arctic Circle —