Friday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 71. Sunrise is 6:22 AM and sunset 7:24 PM, for 13h 01m 40s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 13.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
Nine out of every 10 members of the UW-Madison campus community are fully vaccinated — even without mandating students and employees to get the shot, the university reported Thursday.
“I’m proud of our students and employees for taking this important step to protect themselves and others,” Chancellor Rebecca Blank said in announcing the figures. “And I’m grateful to our staff, who worked tirelessly to achieve these results.”
The data as of Wednesday show:
88% of students are fully vaccinated, and 91% have received at least one dose.
92% of employees working on the main Madison campus are fully vaccinated, including 99% percent of faculty.
92% of students living in dorms are fully vaccinated, and 94% have received at least one dose.
UW-Madison officials verified the rates through on-campus vaccination records and submitted documentation of off-campus vaccinations.
….
Vaccination rates at UW-Madison far outpace the statewide average. Only 62% of Wisconsin adults were fully vaccinated as of Wednesday, according to the state health department. That same day, the state recorded 2,370 new cases, 106 hospitalizations and 11 deaths attributed to COVID-19.
….
Just two other University of Wisconsin System campuses have reported vaccination rates to date.
UW-La Crosse on Wednesday became the first to meet a 70% student vaccination goal set by interim System President Tommy Thompson as part of his “70 for 70” campaign. The achievement unlocks at least seven $7,000 scholarships from the System.
If other UW campuses don’t meet the 70% goal by mid-October, more La Crosse students could receive scholarships. Altogether, the System is distributing 70 scholarships raffle-style.
UW-Eau Claire reported on Monday that 52% of students were vaccinated, according to its COVID-19 dashboard.
Other UW campuses declined to share their data when asked by the State Journal last week, saying students were just returning and reporting it to their schools. Spokespeople said they expect to announce their campus vaccination rates by mid-September.
An institution can achieve high, voluntary vaccination rates if its members are properly acculturated to the benefits of vaccination.
A cat in the United Kingdom rescued his 83-year-old owner after she fell into a ravine by attracting the attention of bystanders with his meowing.
Police in Bodmin, located in Cornwall, England, shared on Facebook last week that officers were searching for the missing woman on Saturday. But she was located by a “member of the public” who spotted the woman’s cat “meowing in the corner of a large maize field near to her home address.”
“The elderly female had fallen approximately 70 ft down a very steep embankment, with incredibly difficult access and uneven terrain,” police shared on Facebook.
After the black cat, named Piran, drew attention to his lost owner, emergency officials pulled her up to a field before taking her to a hospital via air ambulance.
“Piran the cat saved the day!” police in Bodmin shared.
Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 79. Sunrise is 6:21 AM and sunset 7:26 PM, for 13h 04m 28s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 21.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1945, the Japanese Instrument of Surrender is signed by Japan and the major warring powers aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
It was going to happen. The only question was when.
The Natural Resources Board seemed to beg to be taken to court over wolf management when at its Aug. 11 meeting it voted 5-2 to set a kill quota of 300 wolves for the November season.
The decision overruled biologists and wildlife managers with the Department of Natural Resources, who had recommended a quota of 130.
And the board’s number was seemingly plucked from the air.
Wolf issues are more contentious even than those surrounding white-tailed deer.
Wolves have been see-sawing between federal protections of the Endangered Species Act and state management for more than a decade. Litigation on wolves is nothing new.
So if some board members were going to disregard a plan presented by DNR professionals, you’d think they would have offered strong, science-based reasoning.
But the meeting proceeded like some sort of amateur auction, starting with a motion to set the quota at 504 and dropping to 350 before a majority agreed to 300.
The world was watching, of course.
In less than three weeks, groups including Animal Wellness Action, the Center for a Humane Economy, Friends of the Wisconsin Wolf and Wildlife and Project Coyote organized to file Tuesday’s lawsuit in Dane County.
Wisconsin’s wolf-quota process has become a national topic. Accompanying the mere power to set a quota should have been a reasoned approach, lacking here.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 78. Sunrise is 6:20 AM and sunset 7:28 PM, for 13h 07m 16s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 29.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5 PM.
On this day in 1939, Nazi Germany and Slovakia invadePoland, beginning the European phase of World War II.
As Wisconsin Republicans in recent days widened a review of the presidential election, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson told a woman the only reason Donald Trump lost the state was because he didn’t perform as well as other GOP candidates on the ballot.
The Oshkosh Republican made the comment to a liberal activist who posed as a conservative at a Republican event held Sunday. She posted a video of their exchange on Twitter on Tuesday.
“There’s nothing obviously skewed about the results,” Johnson said.
He noted Republicans collectively received more votes in races for other offices.
“If all the Republicans voted for Trump the way they voted for the Assembly candidates, he would have won,” Johnson said. “He didn’t get 51,000 votes that other Republicans got, and that’s why he lost.”
Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 80. Sunrise is 6:19 AM and sunset 7:29 PM, for 13h 10m 04s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 38.6% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1939, Nazi Germany mounts a false flag attack on the Gleiwitz radio station, creating an excuse to attack Poland the following day, thus starting World War II in Europe.
Waukesha school board members reversed their controversial decision to leave a federal free meals program with a split vote Monday, following national uproar andlocal protests.
In an incendiary meeting with two lively overflow rooms, debate ranged from the finer points of feeding students to ideological arguments linking free meals to mask mandates and critical race theory.
Board members voted 5-4 to rescind their previous decision, and opt to participate this school year in the federally funded program that has already been providing free breakfast and lunch to all students in response to the pandemic.
The district had been the only eligible district in the state to opt out of the program, according to the state Department of Public Instruction.
Superintendent James Sebert asked board members to reconsider their previous decision, noting the program would help families “experiencing situational poverty due to the pandemic” who might not qualify for free meals under the district’s traditional program.
….
Some said if the board reversed course, it would be giving in to a “hateful mob” and giving over power to the federal government.
“It’s time for parents and community members to start paying attention to the forces at work here,” board member Kelly Piacsek said. “When the federal government is responsible for feeding all students at all times regardless of need, they have ultimate authority and we don’t need local school boards anymore.”
Piacsek, who was interrupted by applause as she spoke, said it wasn’t “about food anymore,” but about national influences on local school boards. She likened the debate to those about structural racism and COVID precautions.
Slippery slope arguments are typically unpersuasive. Piacsek’s is notable, however, as a conservative populist concern with imagined consequences that have nothing to do with providing the most efficient means for offering meals. She’s concerned about what could come next, and for her, what could come next is a list of curricular or cultural changes to which she’s opposed.
Picasek didn’t complain about “human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria,” but perhaps the Waukesha School Board meeting last long enough.
Sometimes a discussion about a meal program is — and should be —simply a discussion of a meal program.
Monday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 83. Sunrise is 6:18 AM and sunset 7:31 PM, for 13h 12m 50s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 48.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
For the past week, Dr. Gregory Yu, an emergency physician in San Antonio, has received the same daily requests from his patients, some vaccinated for Covid-19 and others unvaccinated: They ask him for ivermectin, a drug typically used to treat parasitic worms that has repeatedly failed in clinical trials to help people infected with the coronavirus.
Dr. Yu has refused the ivermectin requests, he said, but he knows some of his colleagues have not. Prescriptions for ivermectin have seen a sharp rise in recent weeks, jumping to more than 88,000 per week in mid-August from a prepandemic baseline average of 3,600 per week, according to researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Some pharmacists are even reporting shortages of the drug. Travis Walthall, a pharmacist in Kuna, Idaho, a town of about 20,000 people, said that this summer alone he had filled more than 20 ivermectin prescriptions, up from two or three in a typical year. For the past week he has not been able to obtain the drug from his suppliers; they were all out.
Mr. Walthall was astonished, he said, at how many people were willing to take an unapproved drug for Covid. “I’m like, gosh, this is horrible,” he said.
….
Though it has not been shown to be effective in treating Covid, people are now clamoring to get the drug, trading tips in Facebook groups and on Reddit. Some physicians have compared the phenomenon to last year’s surge of interest in hydroxychloroquine, though there are more clinical trials evaluating ivermectin.
The Food and Drug Administration weighed in last week. “You are not a horse,” the agency tweeted, with a warning explaining that ivermectin is not F.D.A.-approved for treating or preventing Covid-19 and that taking large doses can cause serious harm.
A recent review of 14 ivermectin studies, with more than 1,600 participants, concluded that none provided evidence of the drug’s ability to prevent Covid, improve patient conditions or reduce mortality. Another 31 studies are still underway to test the drug.
This Tuesday, August 31st at 1 PM, there will be a showing of The Phantom @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Action/Adventure/Fantasy
1 hour, 40 minutes
Rated PG-13 (1996)
It’s “Saturday afternoon” at the Seniors in the Park Bijou! 400 years ago a young boy survives a pirate attack off the African coast that takes his father’s life. Washed ashore near The Deep Woods, he swears to devote his life to bringing down piracy, greed, cruelty, and injustice, as The Phantom. His role is passed down from father to son, leading people to believe he is an immortal, “The Ghost Who Walks.”
In present-day New York City, The Phantom must thwart an evil criminal businessman from obtaining four magic skulls that would give him the secret to ultimate power.
Based on the daily/Sunday comic strip still running today. Starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, Billy Zane, Treat Williams, and Patrick McGoohan.
If vaccinated, no mask is required. Reservations are no longer required. Free popcorn and a beverage re-instituted!
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 87. Sunrise is 6:17 AM and sunset 7:33 PM, for 13h 15m 37s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 57.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1997, Netflix is launched as an internet DVD rental service.
Peter Wehner writes Trumpism Has Entered Its Final Form (‘In today’s Republican Party, Trump is becoming what was once unthinkable—conventional, unexceptional, even something of an establishment figure’):
The GOP base may be identifying less and less with Trump personally—that was inevitable after he left the presidency—but it is not identifying any less with the conspiracist and antidemocratic impulses that defined him over the past five years.
In fact, the opposite is happening.
Not long ago, Trump was viewed as avant-garde, outrageous, and scandalous, America’s enfant terrible. His actions were viewed as so shocking and norm-shattering that he couldn’t be ignored. In today’s Republican Party, however, Trump is becoming what was once unthinkable—conventional, unexceptional, even something of an establishment figure.
In a right-wing movement that is home to a growing assortment of cranks and kooks—Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar and Lauren Boebert, Mo Brooks and Madison Cawthorn, Ron Johnson and Marsha Blackburn, Mike Lindell and Michael Flynn, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, Cyber Ninjas and QAnon, anti-vaxxers and insurrectionists—Trump looks rather ordinary. He wants credit for the vaccines that were developed during his administration, which mark a genuine medical milestone, but in some quarters of today’s Republican Party, that makes Trump suspect, too closely aligned with the hated Anthony Fauci, a dumbass.
The dark, destructive place the GOP has found itself in isn’t shocking. For more than half a decade, the Republican base—MAGA world—has been fed a constant diet of outrageous lies and conspiracy theories, not just by Trump but also by his allies in the party and the right-wing media ecosystem. Negative emotions such as fear, rage, and resentment have been constantly stirred up. Over time, transgressive behaviors became chic; “owning the libs” became the name of the game. What mattered was hating the right people.
In Whitewater,Trumpism will try but likely fail in the city, but try and succeed in control of the school district. The loss for the district will be considerable: right-wing populist control in the schools will bring speech restrictions on topics of race and health education, and afterward a push for an end to safe spaces for minority students. What seems impossible today will become the populist agenda tomorrow. Populism is an insatiable movement —one successful encroachment against others will only lead to more.
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 94. Sunrise is 6:16 AM and sunset 7:34 PM, for 13h 18m 24s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 66.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1845, the first issue of Scientific American magazine is published.
CLAIM: “Rapid 8 month tested vaccine? Thalidomide was a RAPID APPROVED drug introduced in 1957, to address nausea and insomnia in pregnant women. It was marketed in 50 countries before being withdrawn in 1962 due to malformations in newborns. Be careful with what is coming.”
AP’S ASSESSMENT: Missing context. There are different approval processes for the coronavirus vaccines and the drug thalidomide. Thalidomide was not approved for sale in the U.S. when first introduced in the 1950s. The drug did not undergo extensive trials as is being done with COVID-19 vaccines currently being developed.
….
Dr. S. Vincent Rajkumar, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, who has studied thalidomide and use of the drug to treat myeloma, said you cannot compare the coronavirus vaccine and thalidomide.
“One was trying to solve the problem of sleeplessness and was marketed with zero data, no efficacy or safety or randomized trials,” he said of thalidomide. “The other is trying to solve the problem of a life-threatening pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and there are two randomized trials showing the vaccines are highly effective.”
“The fact that people were efficient and fast does not mean that any of the safety steps were skipped,” Rajkumar said.
Unlike the early trials of thalidomide in the 1960s, the coronavirus vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna have undergone several trial phases including animal and human tests. The vaccines have been tested in more than 60,000 humans and both companies showed more than 90 percent effectiveness. Trial patients reported mild side effects like muscle aches and sore arms.
Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey, an FDA officer in the early 1960s, found that there was not enough safety data on thalidomide as U.S. clinical trials were still being conducted and helped prevent it from being approved for use in the U.S. During the 1950s, clinical trials could be conducted without FDA approval.
A Republican congressional candidate on Tuesday was called out for being completely wrong about the Food and Drug Administration’s past approval of the drug thalidomide.
Posting on Twitter, New Jersey Republican Billy Prempeh attacked the FDA’s full approval of the novel coronavirus vaccine by falsely claiming that the agency had caused several women to suffer from severe birth defects after approving thalidomide for pregnant women in the 1950s.
“Thalidomide was given to pregnant mothers in the 50s and 60s to treat nausea,” he wrote. “The result? Severe birth defects. The FDA approves lots of unsafe things. This is about profit not health. Do your due diligence. But hey, what do I know? I’m just some guy named Billy.”
“The FDA subsequently identified 17 cases — 10 linked to Kevadon that Merrell had distributed to 1,267 doctors under the auspices of its ‘investigational’ trial,” writes the University of Chicago Medical Center. “But the country was spared the broad-based catastrophe visited upon Europe.”
But hey, what do they know? They’re just some institution called the University of Chicago Medical Center.
Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with scattered thundershowers and a high of 91. Sunrise is 6:15 AM and sunset 7:36 PM, for 13h 21m 08s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 75.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1832, Black Hawk, leader of the Sauk, surrenders to U.S. authorities, ending the Black Hawk War.
This summer, Isaac Chotiner interviewed Jan-Werner Müller, author of What Is Populism?, on a definition (or in Chotiner’s formulation, a re-definition of populism. Excerpts from the interview with Müller appear immediately below:
Given the ways the world has changed over the past five years, has your conception of populism changed as well?
My understanding of populism has always deviated somewhat from the inherited American understanding of that term, which goes back to the late nineteenth century, and the sense that it is about Main Street versus Wall Street. Partly against the background of a European understanding of politics, I essentially want to argue that populism is really not just about criticizing élites or being somehow against the establishment. In fact, any old civics textbook would have told us up until recently that being critical of the powerful is actually a civic virtue, and now there’s much more of a sense that, well, this could actually somehow be dangerous for democracy.
So it isn’t as simple as that. It’s true that, when in opposition, populist politicians and parties criticize sitting governments and other parties, but for me what’s crucial is that they tend to allege that they and only they represent what they often call the “real people” or, also very typically, the “silent majority.”
….
But it indeed does have two detrimental consequences for democracy. The obvious one is that populists are going to claim that all other contenders for power are fundamentally illegitimate. This is never just a disagreement about policies or even about values, which after all in a democracy is completely normal, ideally maybe even somewhat productive. No, populists always immediately make it personal and they make it entirely moral. This tendency to simply dismiss everybody else from the get-go as corrupt, as not working for the people, that’s always the pattern.
Then, second, and less obviously, populists will also suggest that anybody who doesn’t agree with their conception of the real people, and therefore also tends not to support them politically—that with all these citizens you can basically call into question whether they truly belong to the people in the first place. We’ve seen this with plenty of other politicians who are going to suggest that already vulnerable minorities, for instance, don’t truly belong to the people.
Long story short, for me populism isn’t about anti-élitism. Any of us can criticize élites. It doesn’t mean we’re right, but this is not in and of itself anything dangerous for democracy. What’s dangerous for democracy, and what I take to be critical to this phenomenon, is basically the tendency to exclude others. Some citizens don’t truly belong, and we see the consequence of that on the ground in India and Turkey and Hungary and in many other countries.
(Emphasis added.)
This tendency of the right-wing populists to exclude others leads them to the fallacy that the greater includes the lesser: in their thinking, if they can banish someone, so to speak, they can do whatever they want to him or her prior to banishment. They do not observe traditional moral or ethical limits on their own claims or actions against others. They reject traditional expectations of self-control or responsibility if applied to them. See Jane Jacobs with Useful Advice on Responsibility (for Whitewater, Richmond Township, Delavan, Etc.).
A part of their approach — and this is true of Trump and his ilk — is that they accuse others of the very deficiencies so evident in them. So, hysterical right-wing populists accuse their opponents of being hysterical, etc. Trump, himself, no longer recognizes the concept of lying if applied to him: he contends that anything he says is a legitimate disinformation effort.
A recent school board meeting in Oshkosh shows what happens when these right-wing populists don’t like a lawfully imposed regulation: Oshkosh School Board meeting postponed after protesters disrupt it, argument breaks out. (There is a reason that the Fort Atkinson School Board had two police officers on duty in the room during a recent discussion of COVID-19 protocols. It was a sensible precaution.)
Although for now there are different kinds of conservatives in Whitewater, it’s a fading distinction — every kind of conservative will have to adopt a populist line or the populists will replace him or her with one of their own, true-red kind. In effect, populism will not accept even different kinds of conservatives. (They see others outside their ranks in crude, simple-minded ways, conflating terms so that a single opponent becomes simultaneously a “liberal, progressive, socialist, Marxist.”
(Note well, Whitewater: Using these four terms indistinguishably is a measure of a disqualifying lack of knowledge or of sheer indifference. There is, however, a fitting term for someone who so misuses these distinct categories: ignoramus.)
Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 86. Sunrise is 6:14 AM and sunset 7:38 PM, for 13h 23m 53s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 83.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.
But Waukesha school board members oppose the idea. At a May meeting, Karin Rajnicek said families that can afford to feed their children should.
“I had three kids, I had them and so I’m going to feed them. I feel like that’s the responsibility of the adult,” Rajnicek said. “I feel like this is a big problem, and it’s really easy to get sucked into and become spoiled and think, it’s not my problem any more, it’s everyone else’s problem to feed my children.”
Waukesha district CFO Darren Clark agreed, saying he doesn’t want families to become dependent on free meals.
“That’s my fear is that it’s the slow addiction of this service,” Clark said. “There is that concern — free is a funny thing.”
The board voted unanimously in June to return to the National School Lunch Program, which requires families to fill out an application to qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Board members said going back to this program will still provide help to the families who need it.
The decision alarmed people working to keep kids from going hungry. Waukesha County Food Pantry Executive Director Karen Tredwell says school meals are a vital source of nutrition for children. She argues that participating in the federally-funded program has no downside for the community.
“My concern is that not only are they not participating in a program that could greatly benefit their students, there is not going to be any positive benefit to taxpayers in the county if they don’t participate,” Tredwell says.
The federal school-meals program is the largest form of nutritional assistance to school-age children, accounting for half of the food consumption among children who participate and subsidizing free or reduced-price meals for more than 22 million students in the 2018-19 school year (approximately 40% of children ages 5-17). Known as the National School Lunch Program, it has substantially changed over the past decade: Historically, only students from low-income families received free meals, but schoolwide free-meal programs—in which all students in a school receive free meals regardless of their own families’ income—are becoming increasingly common. In the 2018-19 school year, more than one-quarter of students attended a school that provided breakfasts and lunches to all students at no cost.
….
This framework allows me to compare changes within a district or school before and after CEP adoption, relative to other areas that eventually participated in CEP but did so in a different year. There are three takeaways from this work:
First, schoolwide free meals increase the number of school breakfasts and lunches served. Using administrative data collected from state departments of education on the number of meals served at each school, I find that this measure increases in schools where many students became newly eligible for free meals after CEP, as well as in schools that previously had high rates of free-meal eligibility. This pattern is consistent with the schoolwide nature of free-meal programs reducing stigma and facilitating greater access, as found in other work.
Second, schoolwide free meals improve math performance in districts where relatively few students qualified under the income-based program. Within these districts, elementary and Hispanic students experience the largest academic improvements. Figure 1 summarizes how free meals through CEP affect math performance among different groups of students in these districts with low free-meal participation before CEP. In this figure, the height of the bars shows the estimated impacts and the vertical lines shows the 90% confidence interval. I find that overall math performance improved about 0.016 standard deviations. Elementary students improved more than average, about 0.020 standard deviations. Finally, Hispanic students’ performance improved the most among all racial/ethnic groups—about 0.034 standard deviations.
Third, schoolwide free-meal programs significantly reduce suspensions among white male elementary students. In work co-authored with Nora Gordon, we find CEP reduced the number of out-of-school suspensions among white male elementary students by approximately 17%. Our estimates for other elementary subgroups suggest fewer suspensions, but these results are smaller in magnitude and generally insignificant.
That improved math performance and fewer suspensions are found in areas and among subpopulations with low free-meal participation before CEP is consistent with the nature of the program. Specifically, schoolwide free-meal programs increase access for families who don’t qualify under the income-based formula—both families with income above 130% of the poverty line, as well as families that do not complete income questionnaires that determine eligibility.
These conservatives of Waukesha express concern for government spending, but they lack the judgment to distinguish between kinds of spending. The Waukesha School District’s chief financial officer sanctimoniously decides that children’smeal programs are the place to draw the line.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 90. Sunrise is 6:13 AM and sunset 7:39 PM, for 13h 26m 38s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 90.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Pedestrian and Bicycle Committee meets at 5 PM.
On this day in 1812, the American frigate, USS United States, commanded by Stephen Decatur, captures the British frigate HMS Macedonian.
University of Wisconsin System interim President Tommy Thompson said Tuesday the System will not follow a directive by Republican lawmakers to seek legislative approval for COVID-19 rules, essentially daring members of his own party to take the now month-long fight to the courts.
In a statement and an interview with reporters Tuesday, Thompson said the Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules’ attempt to control and block campus COVID-19 prevention protocols was “both wrong on the law and wrong as a matter of public policy.”
The motion, proposed by state Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, and passed on a party-line vote Aug. 3, requires UW to seek permission from the rules committee for policies such as those that require students and visitors to wear masks or get regularly tested for COVID-19. The committee, which is made up of six Republicans and four Democrats, could then vote to block some or all of the rules.
“Had this happened last academic year, the university might never have been able to set up community testing and vaccination sites, or even isolate sick students,” Thompson said. “It would have been a disaster.”
On Tuesday, Thompson said the System won’t seek approval from the committee and vowed to take any legal fight up to the state Supreme Court if necessary.
“I’m fairly confident we’re going to win. I have no doubts (of) that if the Legislature sues us,” Thompson said. “I don’t think they will, but if they do, so be it. I’m not abdicating my responsibility. We will contest it. I don’t want a fight with the Legislature, but we will contest it aggressively, whether it be the circuit court, the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court.”
….
Thompson said UW’s situation is grounded in different legal arguments than the Wisconsin Supreme Court case that struck down the statewide mask mandate. UW System’s independent authority to run the schools is enshrined in Chapter 36 of the state statute, he said.
Nass fired back Tuesday, railing against UW’s “Ivory Tower administrators” who he claims are using pandemic rules “to control every adult that dares to walk on their campuses.”
If UW did not comply with the rule by Sept. 2, he said, he would ask Republican state Assembly and Senate leadership to take legal action “to force the UW System to comply with state law.”
Nass’s rhetoric (or, to be more precise, the words Mike Mikalsen may have written for Nass) won’t be enough. Nass will have to persuade the legislature to sue to enforce its claimed authority. If they won’t sue, or if legislative leaders reach a deal with Thompson on Thompson’s terms, then Nass will meet the limits of his reach — a right-wing base, but no more.
Thompson’s position against Nass is institutional, legal, and (doubtless) personal, too: few outside Nass’s base respect him. Some politicians in a vocal minority are respected; Nass isn’t one of them.
