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Author Archive for JOHN ADAMS

City, Culture, Daily Bread, University, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 2.9.23: Whitewater as the Most Collegiate City in Wisconsin

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will see a mix of rain and snow with a high of 35. Sunrise is 6:58 AM and sunset 5:19 PM for 10h 20m 17s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 87.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Alcohol Licensing Committee meets at 2 PM. 

 On this day in 1870, President Grant signs a joint resolution of Congress establishing the U.S. Weather Bureau.

The Washington Post has a 50-state survey of which town in each state has the most college students as a percentage of the city (where the examination was among cities). The Post calls those places the ‘collegiest‘ towns in each state. (The most collegiate places would have worked well enough.) 

UW-Whitewater, unsurprisingly, has the most college students in Wisconsin as a percentage of its home city. Whitewater, Wisconsin ranks high — 8th — on the Post‘s national list.

The high percentage of students has not, however, aided efforts to overcome town-gown conflicts. On the contrary, the non-student population includes a fair number of residents who’d rather Whitewater had no campus at all. Those who have worked on bringing campus and town closer have mostly failed. They’ve tried hard, some of them, but their efforts have produced little. Whitewater has a faction that deprecates college life, ridicules a college education, and insists that this town would be fine with no campus. (This hostility is a deflection: the level of child poverty in Whitewater shows that our problems begin at home, so to speak, not on campus.)

Bridging the town-gown divide requires more than wearing royal purple or renting apartments to college students. (Those who see the campus mostly as a money stream, notably the town’s landlords, are among the least insightful about what makes a college a vibrant place, let alone how to bring diverse student and non-student groups together.) 

Andrew Van Dam reports The collegiest college town in every state, and more:

Congress, Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 2.8.23: The Countess of Georgia’s 14th Congressional District Was Refined as Always

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 44. Sunrise is 7:00 AM and sunset 5:17 PM for 10h 17m 41s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 93.32% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater School Board’s Policy Review Committee meets at 8 AM, and Whitewater’s Police and Fire Commission meets at 7 PM.  

 On this day in 1950, the Stasi, the secret police force of East Germany, is established

 Here are a few photos of Marjorie Taylor Greene from last night’s State of the Union address:

There will be some who will cheer her on as a conservative populist heroine. Some, but not enough: she acted, and dressed, like a mobster’s wife. Her antics remain repulsive to key (that is, normal) constituencies the GOP needs to win. 

Speaker Kevin McCarthy is reported to have said of Greene that “I will never leave that woman…I will always take care of her.” (McCarthy was speaking politically, not romantically. Candidly, there is no skepticism of McCarthy deep enough, even from this libertarian blogger, that one would assume McCarthy was describing a romantic connection.) 

Best wishes to the 118th Congress.  

 Cheers erupt as rescuers save family in Syria after deadly earthquake: 

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Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 2.7.23: A Possibility for the Wisconsin Supreme Court Primary

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 40. Sunrise is 7:01 AM and sunset 5:16 PM for 10h 15m 07s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM. 

 On this day in 2013, Mississippi officially certifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment was formally ratified by Mississippi in 1995.

 However improbable an outcome, Bill Lueders (writing in the subscription-required Bulwark) observes that the Wisconsin Supreme Court primary on 2.21.23 might produce two winners of the same ideology: 

Along with 37 other states, Wisconsin has its voters elect justices to its high court; as in 13 other states, its contests for the seats are nonpartisan. The February 21 primary election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court will decide which two of four candidates will advance to the April 4 general election. There are two conservatives, Daniel Kelly and Jennifer Dorow, and two liberals, Janet Protasiewicz and Everett Mitchell, on the ballot. All are serious contenders: It’s possible the vote will split evenly enough that either the two conservatives or the two liberals are the top two vote-getters.

That means the all-important question of the Wisconsin court’s ideological balance could be settled in the primary, when turnout can be as low as a third of the general election vote. This sliver of the electorate could decide whether liberals or conservatives have a majority as the court heads into a critical moment in its history.

See also The Wisconsin Supreme Court Race.

Possible, but improbable. It seems more likely that one conservative and one center-left candidate will break through, leaving the April 4th election as a right-left contest. For the primary to be so closely contested between the candidates that one ideological faction wins both seats would be quite the shock. 

Lueders hits on a probability, however, when he writes that 

If either liberal candidate makes it to the April 4 ballot, he or she will be targeted with a wave of attack ads. For Protasiewicz, these will likely focus on decisions she’s made in a quarter century of being a prosecutor and nearly nine years as a judge. Mitchell, meanwhile, has said some dicey things, like arguing, when he was a University of Wisconsin official and not a judge, that people who shoplift from big-box stores should not be prosecuted. There are also allegations of abuse his ex-wife brought forward during a custody dispute over their daughter in 2010; he denies the allegations, and she says she wants to leave them in the past.

A spring campaign between right and left would be expensive and ferocious. (More ferocious, although not more expensive, than 2022 gubernatorial race.) 

‘I’ll Keep on Dancing’: Shooting Survivors Return to Ballroom:

Conspiracy Theories, Daily Bread, Elections, Mendacity, Presidential race 2020, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 2.6.23: Trump Campaign Knew It Lost Wisconsin in 2020, So It Prepared to Lie

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 41. Sunrise is 7:02 AM and sunset 5:15 PM for 10h 12m 33s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 99.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Equal Opportunities Commission meets at 5 PM. 

 On this day in 1778, in Paris the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce are signed by the United States and France signaling official recognition of the new republic.

 Scott Bauer reports Trump campaign staff on 2020 election lies: ‘fan the flame’:

A newly released audio recording offers a behind-the-scenes look at how former President Donald Trump’s campaign team in a pivotal battleground state knew they had been outflanked by Democrats in the 2020 presidential election. But even as they acknowledged defeat, they pivoted to allegations of widespread fraud that were ultimately debunked — repeatedly — by elections officials and the courts.

The audio from Nov. 5, 2020, two days after the election, is surfacing as Trump again seeks the White House while continuing to lie about the legitimacy of the outcome and Democrat Joe Biden’s win.

The Wisconsin political operatives in the strategy session even praised Democratic turnout efforts in the state’s largest counties and appeared to joke about their efforts to engage Black voters, according to the recording obtained Thursday by The Associated Press. The audio centers on Andrew Iverson, who was the head of Trump’s campaign in the state.

“Here’s the drill: Comms is going to continue to fan the flame and get the word out about Democrats trying to steal this election. We’ll do whatever they need (inaudible) help with. Just be on standby in case there’s any stunts we need to pull,” Iverson said.

Emphasis added.

See audio with quoted remarks at https://www.nbc15.com/video/2023/02/03/audio-trump-campaign-staff-2020-election-lies-fan-flame/ 

For this crowd, I’m-just-askin’-questions has become I won’t accept what I don’t want to accept. 

How odd: all these big tough people who melt at a mask, shriek over a proven vaccine, and squeal over a mail-in ballot. 

Truth be told about Andrew Iverson, head of Trump’s 2020 Wisconsin campaign: he knew his constituency, a faction eager for flame-fanning and stunt-pulling.

See also The Conspiracy Capital of Wisconsin (It’s Not Whitewater), and How Election Conspiracies Took Over the GOP.

 Mesmerizing murmuration of starlings flies across UK sky:

Animals, Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 2.5.23: Million Dollar Koi Fish

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 37. Sunrise is 7:03 AM and sunset 5:13 PM for 10h 10m 02s of daytime. The moon is full with 100% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1907, Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland announces the creation of Bakelite, the world’s first synthetic plastic.

 Japan’s King of Carp Breeds Million Dollar Koi Fish:

 Cat Opens Apartment Door for Owner Who Got Locked Out:

Adventure, Daily Bread, Faraway Places

Daily Bread for 2.4.23: Antarctica for 70 days, 922 miles

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 37. Sunrise is 7:05 AM and sunset 5:12 PM for 10h 07m 31s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 98.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1789, George Washington is unanimously elected as the first President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College.

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by BBC Woman’s Hour (@bbcwomanshour)

 How video game music got to the Grammys:

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Daily Bread, Economy, Employment

Daily Bread for 2.3.23: National Job Hiring Stays Strong

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 5. Sunrise is 7:06 AM and sunset 5:11 PM for 10h 05m 02s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 95.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1959, rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson are killed in a plane crash along with the pilot near Clear Lake, Iowa, an event later known as The Day the Music Died.

 The American economy continues to perform well:

The American labor market unleashed a burst of hiring in January, producing another wave of robust job growth even as interest rates continue to rise.

Employers added 517,000 jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Labor Department said on Friday, an increase from 260,000 in December.

The unemployment rate was 3.4 percent, the lowest since 1969.

Even as hiring surged, wage growth slowed slightly to 0.3 percent compared with December.

The hefty hiring figures defied expectations and underscored the challenges facing the Federal Reserve, which is trying to cool the labor market in its effort to tame rapid inflation. By raising interest rates — on Wednesday, Fed officials did so for the eighth time in a year — policymakers hope to force businesses to pull back on their spending, including hiring.

Yet the labor market has remained extraordinarily tight. In addition to the report on Friday, the government released data this week showing that the number of posted jobs per available unemployed worker — a measure that policymakers have been watching closely — rose again in December. And despite a cavalcade of layoffs in the technology sector, the overall number of pink slips has stayed extremely low.

In a big country like America, the national economy is not a single state’s economy, as it is not a single city’s economy. States and cities that repeat the same economic mistakes of the last several years will not enjoy the nation’s level of success. They’ll lag behind. 

Worse, of course: states and cities that refuse to admit that they’ve been repeating the same economic mistakes of the last several years. 

 See astronauts work outside space station in 2nd spacewalk of 2023:

Cats

Friday Catblogging: Bruno Finds a Home

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Bruno, a shelter cat in New Jersey, was returned to the shelter after only a week for being ‘too affectionate.’ Some cats like more contact than others, and Bruno has an affectionate nature than was unsuited to the family that first adopted him.

Liam Quinn reports A cat named Bruno was returned to a shelter for being ‘too affectionate.’ Now, he has a new home:

A cat that was returned to a New Jersey shelter for being “too affectionate” has found a new home – and has helped other cats at the shelter get adopted too.

Bruno the cat first arrived at the Montville Animal Shelter in November, after the child of his previous owners became allergic to him. Two months later, he was adopted by a single mother and young daughter seeking a first pet. But when they brought him home, the shelter’s Lindsay Persico said, he was just a little too close for comfort.

….

Persico said that when Bruno returned, he was depressed. So Persico took to Facebook and posted Bruno’s story. The post blew up, with over 200,000 views and hundreds of comments. And the adoption applications started pouring in.

….

In fact, an update to the Facebook post said they had to pause applications. People from all over the country called the shelter to inquire.

Bruno was adopted and is now in a new home. But the overwhelming response has helped the shelter’s other cats too.

Best wishes to Bruno in his new home.

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Daily Bread, Holiday, Weather

Daily Bread for 2.2.23: A Bit More Winter

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 26. Sunrise is 7:07 AM and sunset 5:09 PM for 10h 02m 35s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 90.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

 Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM. 

 On this day in 1653, New Amsterdam (later renamed the City of New York) is incorporated.

 Punxsutawney Phil awoke this morning, saw his shadow, and so predicted six more weeks of winter. 

This is, however one looks at it, good news. For those of us who like winter, we’ve a bit over 40 days more. For those who dislike winter, Phil’s prediction places the end of winter around March 16th, still a few days short of the March equinox on Monday, March 20th. 

Well done, hibernating mammal. 

Risky rescue from Bakhmut reunites Ukraine girl with mother:

Daily Bread, Economy, Energy, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 2.1.23: Solar Over Ethanol for Wisconsin

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 24. Sunrise is 7:08 AM and sunset 5:08 PM for 10h 00m 09s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 84.51% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1964, The Beatles have their first number one hit in the United States with “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”

Joe Schulz reports Study recommends converting some of Wisconsin’s corn-based ethanol land into solar farms (‘Researchers say solar would boost Wisconsin’s energy output more than ethanol’):

Converting less than one-third of the roughly 1 million acres Wisconsin uses to grow corn for ethanol into solar farms would boost the state’s energy production and help reduce carbon emissions, according to a new report from Clean Wisconsin, an environmental advocacy nonprofit.

Clean Wisconsin looked at both the gross energy production and the energy “inputs” required for solar and ethanol production.

It found that 88 percent of the energy generated by solar goes to society and 12 percent is offset by production requirements. For ethanol, only 20 percent of the energy goes to society and 80 percent is offset by production.

“Corn needs to be grown, harvested and processed into ethanol, all of which require energetic inputs. Likewise, solar panels need to be manufactured and installed,” said Paul Mathewson, science program director for Clean Wisconsin. “When accounting for inputs, the net energy production of solar is over 100 times that of corn ethanol.”

Mathewson said growing corn for ethanol also has a negative environmental impact on the state’s waterways because corn requires chemical inputs like pesticides and nitrogen fertilizer.

“Agriculture contributes to about 90 percent of the nitrate contamination problems,” he said. “And corn needs a lot of nitrogen fertilizer to grow at the scale and at the intensity that we grow in Wisconsin.”

….

“With just a fraction of what we’re using already to grow corn ethanol for energy, we can produce enough homegrown energy (with) solar panels that would power our state’s clean energy economy,” said Chelsea Chandler, Clean Wisconsin’s climate, energy and air program director. “And we’d be improving our water quality, our air and our soil health at the same time.”

The debate over energy production will not soon end, but it’s useful ponder our options. In the meantime, America is moving toward what we still call alternative energy sources, but they won’t always be alternatives to the dominant fossil-fuel-burning economy.

In the same way, automobiles were once alternatives to horses, yet no one thinks of cars that way now. 

What’s Up: February 2023 Skywatching:

Crime, Daily Bread, Elections, Presidential race 2016, Russia, Trump

Daily Bread for 1.31.23: Trump & Russia

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 10. Sunrise is 7:09 AM and sunset 5:07 PM for 9h 57m 46s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 77.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

 Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 6:30 PM.

 On this day in 1865, the United States Congress passes the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, abolishing slavery, and submits it to the states for ratification.

Prof. Timothy Snyder writes a summary on Twitter of Russia’s influence on the FBI.  Snyder explains how Trump’s claim of Russian influence as a “hoax” is false — the Russia “hoax” was no hoax, but rather a criminal manipulation of America law enforcement at Russia’s bidding, on Trump’s behalf: 

In April 2016, I broke the story of Trump and Putin, using Russian open sources. Afterwards, I heard vague intimations that something was awry in the FBI in New York, specifically counter-intelligence and cyber. We now have a suggestion as to why. 0/20

The person who led the relevant section, Charles McGonigal, has just been charged with taking money from the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Follow this thread to see just how this connects to the victory of Trump, the Russian war in Ukraine, and U.S. national security. 1/20 

The reason I was thinking about Trump & Putin in 2016 was a pattern. Russia had sought to control Ukraine, using social media, money, & a pliable head of state. Russia backed Trump the way that it had backed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, in the hopes of soft control 2/20

Trump & Yanukovych were similar figures: interested in money, & in power to make or shield money. And therefore vulnerable partners for Putin. They also shared a political advisor: Paul Manafort. He worked for Yanukovych from 2005-2015, taking over Trump’s campaign in 2016. 3/20

You might remember Manafort’s ties to Russia from 2016. He (and Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump, Jr.) met with Russians in June 2016 in Trump Tower as part of, as the broker of the meeting called it, “the Russian government’s support for Trump” (#RoadToUnfreedom, p. 237). 4/20

Manafort had to resign as Trump’s campaign manager in August 2016 when news broke that he had received $12.7 million in cash from Yanukovych. But these details are just minor elements of Manafort’s dependence on Russia. (#RoadToUnfreedom, p. 235). 5/20

Manafort worked for Deripaska, the same Russian oligarch to whom McGonigal is linked, between 2006 and 2009. Manafort’s assignment was to soften up the U.S for Russian influence. He promised “a model that can greatly benefit the Putin government.” (#RoadToUnfreedom, p. 234). 6/20

While Manafort worked for Trump in 2016, though, Manafort’s dependence on Russia was deeper. He owed Deripaska money, not a position one would want to be in. Manafort offered Deripaska “private briefings” on the campaign. He was hoping “to get whole.” (#RoadToUnfreedom, 234) 7/20

Reconsider how the FBI treated the Trump-Putin connection in 2016. Trump and other Republicans screamed that the FBI had overreached. In retrospect, it seems the exact opposite took place. The issue of Russian influence was framed in a way convenient for Russia and Trump. 8/20

The FBI investigation, Crossfire Hurricane, focused on the narrow issue of personal connections between the Trump campaign and Russians. It missed Russia’s cyber attacks and the social media campaign, which, according to Kathleen Hall Jamieson, won the election for Trump. 9/20

Once the issue of Russian soft control was framed narrowly as personal contact, Obama missed the big picture, and Trump had an easy defense. Trump knew that Russia was working for him, but the standard of guilt was placed so high that he could defend himself. 10/20

It is entirely inconceivable that McGonigal was unaware of Russia’s 2016 cyber influence campaign on behalf of Trump. Even I was aware of it, and I had no expertise. It became one of the subjects of my book #RoadtoUnfreedom. 11/20

The FBI did investigate cyber later, and came to some correct conclusions. But this was after the election, and missed the Russian influence operations entirely. That was an obvious counterintelligence issue. Why did the FBI take so long, and miss the point? 12/20

I had no personal connection to this, but will just repeat what informed people said at the time: this sort of thing was supposed to go through the FBI counter-intelligence section in New York, where tips went to die. That is where McGonigal was in charge. 13/20

The cyber element is what McGonigal should have been making everyone aware of in 2016. In 2016, McGonigal was chief of the FBI’s Cyber-Counterintelligence Coordination Section. That October, he was put in charge of the Counterintelligence Division of the FBI’s NY office. 14/20

We need to understand why the FBI failed in 2016 to address the essence of an ongoing Russian influence operation. The character of that operation suggests that it would have been the responsibility of an FBI section whose head is now accused of taking Russian money. 15/20

Right after the McGonigal story broke, Kevin McCarthy ejected Adam Schiff from the House intelligence committee. Schiff is expert on Russian influence operations. It exhibits carelessness about national security to exclude him. It is downright suspicious to exclude him now. 16/20

Back in June 2016, Kevin McCarthy expressed his suspicion that Donald Trump was under Putin’s influence. He and other Republican members concluded that the risk of an embarrassment to their party was more important than American security. #RoadToUnfreedom, p. 255. 17/20

The Russian influence operation to get Trump elected was real. It serves no one to pretend otherwise. We are still learning about it. Denying that it happened makes the United States vulnerable to ongoing Russian operations. 18/20

I remember a certain frivolity from 2016. Trump was a curiosity. Russia was irrelevant. Nothing to take seriously. Then Trump was elected, blocked weapon sales to Ukraine, and tried to stage a coup. Now Ukrainians are dying every day in the defining conflict of our time. 19/20

The McGonigal question goes even beyond these issues. He had authority in the most sensitive possible investigations within U.S. intelligence. Sorting this out will require a concern for the United States that goes beyond party loyalty. 20/20

If Trumpism were an honest movement — it’s not — it would replace those Trump flags with an emblem that lies beneath: 

McDonald’s Opens First Fully Automated Location in Texas:

Agriculture, Daily Bread, Dairy, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 1.30.23: Wisconsin Farm Bankruptcies Decline

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will see intervals of clouds and sunshine with a high of 7. Sunrise is 7:10 AM and sunset 5:05 PM for 9h 55m 24s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 68.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

 The Whitewater School Board meets in closed session shortly after 7 PM.

 On this day in 1948, following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in his home compound, India’s prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, broadcasts to the nation, saying “The light has gone out of our lives.” The date of the assassination becomes observed as “Martyrs’ Day” in India.

 Wisconsin no longer leads the nation in farm bankruptcies (‘Better financial conditions, more consolidation mean there are fewer farms filing for bankruptcy in the state’): 

After years of leading the nation in farm bankruptcies, the latest federal data shows Wisconsin has returned to more normal levels of new filings.

Federal court data shows Wisconsin only had 10 Chapter 12 bankruptcy cases filed in the 12 months before Sept. 30, 2022. Chapter 12 is a bankruptcy code that allows farmers who are carrying too much debt to reorganize their business and potentially have some of their debt forgiven.

The latest total is a 72 percent decline from the same period in 2021, when there were 36 new cases filed in the state. At that time, the western district of Wisconsin by itself was tied with Minnesota for highest number of cases in the nation.

In 2020, the same report showed 78 Chapter 12 filings, with western Wisconsin again leading the nation for the highest number of cases.

At the 2023 Wisconsin Agricultural Outlook Forum this week, Paul Mitchell, director of the Renk Agribusiness Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said part of the decline is likely from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s move to stop past-due debt collections and farm foreclosures during the COVID-19.

….

Mitchell said one of the biggest reasons farm bankruptcy filings are down is because the industry has been in a better financial position.

Many producers saw increased cash coming from the federal government through pandemic-related programs. Commodity prices across the industry, from corn to milk, and land values have also been going up.

“After two years of high income and increased land values, the average farmer is going into 2023 in a solid financial position, with their debts paid down, loans refinanced with lower interest rates, increased equity on their balance sheets from all those land value increases,” Mitchell said at the event. “Like I said, it’s a solid financial situation for the average farmer. Not every farmer, but the average farmer.”

Wisconsin farms took significant losses, but better for the surviving farms to be where they are now than where they were a few years ago. Nothing agreeable, however, in any of agriculture’s travails. 

 Boeing’s 747 prepares for final send-off: