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Author Archive for JOHN ADAMS

Courts, Daily Bread, Law, Litigation

Daily Bread for 10.11.24: Yeah, Sure, But Who Fixes This Kind of Crazy?

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 80. Sunrise is 7:04, and sunset is 6:18, for 11 hours, 14 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous, with 58.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1986,  Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev meet in Iceland to continue discussions about scaling back IRBM arsenals in Europe.

Months ago, Gov. Evers used his partial veto authority as governor to alter legislation so that a school funding increase would continue for 400 years. The Wisconsin Supreme Court decided in June to take a case challenging that partial veto. See FREE WHITEWATER, Wisconsin Supreme Court Considers Gubernatorial Partial Veto. At the time, I wrote that

Evers’s expansion of the legislative funding until 2425 was unexpected (and I’d argue that expansion goes too far). And yet, and yet, his actions are a clever expression (and send-up) of political gamesmanship. I don’t know Evers’s childhood reading and viewing habits. Still, his partial veto suggests someone who enjoyed the irony and satire of Mad magazine or has a Bugs-Bunny-level cleverness.)

Well, the case went to oral argument before Wisconsin’s high court, and the justices are perplexed, as Scott Bauer reports:

Justices appeared to agree that limits were needed, but they grappled with where to draw the line.

When legal scholars and others look at what Wisconsin courts have allowed relative to partial vetoes, “they think it’s crazy because it is crazy,” said Justice Brian Hagedorn. “We allow governors to unilaterally create law that has not been proposed to them at all. It is a mess of this court’s making.”

The initial reaction from anyone would be that a 400-year veto is “extreme,” said Justice Rebecca Dallet, but the question is whether it’s within the governor’s authority to use the partial veto to extend the duration of dates.

….

Wisconsin’s partial veto power was created by a 1930 constitutional amendment, but it’s been weakened over the years, including in reaction to vetoes made by former governors, both Republicans and Democrats.

Voters adopted constitutional amendments in 1990 and 2008 that removed the ability to strike individual letters to make new words — the “Vanna White” veto — and the power to eliminate words and numbers in two or more sentences to create a new sentence — the “Frankenstein” veto. 

The lawsuit before the court on Wednesday contends that Evers’ partial veto is barred under the 1990 constitutional amendment prohibiting the “Vanna White” veto, named the co-host of the game show Wheel of Fortune who flips letters to reveal word phrases.

But Evers argued that the “Vanna White” veto ban applies only to striking individual letters to create new words, not vetoing digits to create new numbers.

Listen to this week’s oral argument in Jeffery A LeMieux v. Tony Evers via download @ https://devwww.wicourts.gov/scoa-media/2024AP000729_20241009.mp3

The court may decide to reject Evers’s approach, but prior changes to the partial veto came through a state constitutional amendment. Why, then, should the court decide now? Wisconsin voters can, through amendment, alter the partial veto in many ways, or eliminate it entirely.

There’s too much, too far, or too long, and there there’s what method to limit too much, too far, or too long.

The gubernatorial partial veto’s limits can and should be addressed by voters through a constitutional amendment.

Voters can (and should) be the ones to fix this kind of crazy.

Black hole shreds star and has moved on to another target:

Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes, astronomers have found that a black hole that shredded a star has moved onto a another star or stellar black hole

America, City, Daily Bread, Economy

Daily Bread for 10.10.24: National Inflation Rate Falls Again

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 73. Sunrise is 7:03, and sunset is 6:19, for 11 hours, 17 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent, with 48 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Board of Zoning Appeals meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1985,  US Navy aircraft intercept an Egyptian airliner carrying the perpetrators of the Achille Lauro hijacking, and force it to land in Italy.

Christopher Rugaber reports US inflation reaches lowest point since February 2021, though some price pressures remain:

Inflation in the United States dropped last month to its lowest point since it first began surging more than three years ago, adding to a spate of encouraging economic news in the closing weeks of the presidential race. 

Consumer prices rose just 2.4% in September from a year earlier, down from 2.5% in August, and the smallest annual rise since February 2021. Measured from month to month, prices increased 0.2% from August to September, the Labor Department reported Thursday, the same as in the previous month.

These favorable national measures are beneficial throughout the county.

Go ahead, Whitewater, make the most of these better times. Take someone’s recommendation and turn the page.

Nearly One Hundred — 100! — Raccoons Surround Seattle-Area Woman’s House:

Banking & Finance, Daily Bread, Eric Hovde, Mendacity, US Senate Race 2024, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 10.9.24: Hovde Spreads Lies About Hurricane Response (Of Course He Does)

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 70. Sunrise is 7:01, and sunset is 6:21, for 11 hours, 19 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent, with 37.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Involvement and Cable TV Commission meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1986,  Fox Broadcasting Company (FBC) launches as the fourth US television network.

FEMA debunks rumors like Hovde’s on funding, illegal immigrants ahead of Milton:

Hope Karnopp reports Senate candidate Eric Hovde circulates false Hurricane Helene claims debunked by FEMA:

Key Points

Hovde claimed FEMA is “out of money.” FEMA says it has enough money for immediate response and recovery needs.

FEMA money is not being diverted to illegal immigrants, and individual assistance is being distributed from a dedicated fund.

FEMA urges people to seek official, trusted sources of information.

Eric Hovde

Statement: “FEMA is out of money and doesn’t have money to transfer to those people affected by the hurricane … they used the money to assist illegal immigrants.”

Eric Hovde, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin, has been circulating false claims about Hurricane Helene that federal officials are urging people to stop spreading. 

“FEMA is out of money and doesn’t have money to transfer to those people affected by the hurricane,” Hovde said in a video posted Thursday on X, formerly Twitter. “They used the money to assist illegal immigrants.”

It should be unsettling for the customers of California man Hovde’s Utah-based bank to have a liar for a CEO, but perhaps opinions differ even on that simple point.

IceNode: JPL’s Autonomous Underwater Robots:

Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are testing a prototype of IceNode, a robot designed to access one of the most difficult-to-reach places on Earth. The team envisions a fleet of these autonomous robots deploying into unmapped underwater cavities beneath Antarctic ice shelves. There, they’d measure how fast the ice is melting — data that’s crucial to helping scientists accurately project how much global sea levels will rise. The IceNode team took a prototype robot for a test under Arctic sea ice in the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska, in March 2024.

America, Daily Bread, Putin, Russia, Trump, Trump-Russia

Daily Bread for 10.8.24: For Mr. Trump, It’s Russia First

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 68. Sunrise is 7:00, and sunset is 6:23, for 11 hours, 22 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent, with 28.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Tech Park Innovation Center Board meets at 8:30 AM, the city’s Finance Committee at 4:30 PM, and the Public Works Committee at 5 PM.

On this day in 1871, Peshtigo, Wisconsin is devastated by a fire which took 1,200 lives:

The fire caused over $2 million in damages and destroyed 1.25 million acres of forest. This was the greatest human loss due to fire in the history of the United States. The Peshtigo Fire was overshadowed by the Great Chicago fire which occurred on the same day, killing 250 people and lasting three days. While the Chicago fire is said to have started by a cow kicking over a lantern, it is uncertain how the Peshtigo fire began. 

Isaac Stanley-Becker, writing of Bob Woodward’s new book (War, about international crises), reports:

As the coronavirus tore through the world in 2020, and the United States and other countries confronted a shortage of tests designed to detect the illness, then-President Donald Trump secretly sent coveted tests to Russian President Vladimir Putin for his personal use.

Putin, petrified of the virus, accepted the supplies but took pains to prevent political fallout — not for him, but for his American counterpart. He cautioned Trump not to reveal that he had dispatched the scarce medical equipment to Moscow, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward.

Putin, according to the book, told Trump, “I don’t want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me.”

America’s COVID test kits for Russia’s dictator.

Trump needs to revise one of his his oft-repeated slogans.

‘Russia First’ would be more accurate.

Gyms in Japan Now Offer Laundry, Karaoke, Etc.:

Daily Bread, Eric Hovde, Sen. Baldwin, US Senate Race 2024, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 10.7.24: These Aren’t Subtle Men

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 65. Sunrise is 6:59, and sunset is 6:24, for 11 hours, 25 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent, with 20.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1774, Wisconsin Becomes Part of… Quebec:

On this date Britain passed the Quebec Act, making Wisconsin part of the province of Quebec. Enacted by George III, the act restored the French form of civil law to the region. The Thirteen Colonies considered the Quebec Act as one of the “Intolerable Acts,” as it nullified Western claims of the coast colonies by extending the boundaries of the province of Quebec to the Ohio River on the south and to the Mississippi River on the west. [Source: Avalon Project at the Yale Law School].

Dan Bice of the Journal Sentinel writes of Eric Hovde’s attack ad against Tammy Baldwin:

For the past month, Republican candidate Eric Hovde and his GOP allies have been pounding on Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin over her relationship with a New York money manager, Maria Brisbane.

Hovde’s ads suggest there is a likely conflict of interest between the two because of Baldwin’s work in the Senate and Brisbane’s job advising ultra-wealthy clients on their finances. Baldwin and Brisbane have been dating since 2018.

“Tammy Baldwin: in bed with Wall Street,” concludes one of Hovde’s TV spots, which features pictures of the pair.

Yeah, not terribly subtle.

Yeah, not terribly subtle. But, then, these aren’t subtle men. Attacks like this, however, won’t change the race’s outcome. If Hovde had more and better to offer Wisconsin, he’d already be using that more and better.

Previously at FREE WHITEWATER: Eric Hovde’s Banking Deal with a Cartel-Linked Mexican Bank, Hovde’s Evident, Ignorant Racism, Eric Hovde Treats Wisconsin as a Side Hustle,  It’s Not Going So Well for Hovde, Eric Hovde Should Fire His Political Consultants and Hire a Therapist, Tim Michels 2.0 Eric Hovde Announces U.S. Senate Run, and Another Vanity Candidate.  

Why Is This Island Filled With Rabbits?:

Imagine an island filled only with rabbits. Okunoshima is a small island in Japan’s Inland Sea. It’s called “Rabbit Island” because of the thousands of feral rabbits that roam the land. No one knows exactly how they got there, but since the end of World War II, the rabbits have been doing what they do best … multiplying.

City, Daily Bread, Humor, School District

Daily Bread for 10.6.24: Scenes Clever, Dull, and Clever

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 75. Sunrise is 6:58, and sunset is 6:26, for 11 hours, 28 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent, with 12.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Run for Trey 5K Fun Run takes place today (registration open at 8 AM, race at 10 AM, at Treyton’s Field of Dreams, 504 W Starin Road in Whitewater.

On this day in 2010, Instagram, a mainstream photo-sharing application, launches.

Consider three vignettes on humor: a prank, a response to it, and a contemporary rendition of puns. These vignettes are respectively clever, dull, and clever.

The Prank: Students have for generations strewn toilet paper into trees. The prank is part of Americana. It’s time-honored and harmless. One such TP mission took place recently on the grounds of Whitewater High School.

Clever, and in keeping with American culture.

The Response: Whitewater’s high-school principal and athletic director rode around on a golf cart, with a mechanical claw, picking up pieces of toilet paper, and later posing for photographs.

There’s a backstory to the recent Whitewater incident. This same principal, Brent Mansky, only a year ago was accused in his hometown of Williams Bay of pursuing and tacking a teenager for trying to place toilet paper on Mansky’s house1.

Whitewater Principal Mansky, after the recent Whitewater High toilet papering, gave a statement to the Banner, a publication of the Whitewater Community Foundation:

Principal Brent Mansky and Athletic Director Justin Crandall displayed no irritation while cruising the campus in a golf cart to retrieve paper from the lawn on Friday afternoon. “They have to learn to do it better,” Mansky told The Banner. Noting how the perpetrators seemed to hit each tree only once, he continued, “Next year we’re going to make it into a competition between the classes; each grade will be assigned a section. They’ll have to clean up what’s on the lawn by Friday evening.”

Consider that statement, in light of Mansky’s past overwrought and under-thought conduct in Williams Bay. His present remarks are humorless and, truly, backwards. Humor, if any at all, after his past conduct should have been contrite and self-effacing (well, I had that coming, etc.) Instead, Manksy’s reply brittlely repeats part of his past mistake: a false projection of strength (“they have to learn to do it better”) like the false strength of turning off his yard camera while waiting for minor children to come into his yard.

His humor’s backwards because his perspective is backwards.

The Banner‘s subject line, “WHS Principal Takes Homecoming TP in Stride: “They have to learn how to do it better” is obtuse. That’s not taking this harmless prank in stride. If Mansky took it in stride, he wouldn’t be projecting demands for more onto his pranksters. He would be self-deprecating. More likely: this is an embarrassed man who found a soft-touch staff member at the Banner to salve his embarrassment.

Here’s a saying that describes this local effort: can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. It’s a dull and humorless effort.

A Contemporary Rendition of Puns. I’ll offer a palate cleanser by way of a truly humorous rendition of old-school puns2. I’m not much for puns, yet listen to a talented Instagrammer, contemporary in style and delivery, make something old vibrant again:


Now that’s clever3: someone of a new generation (about the age of my daughter-in-law, I’d guess), through fashion and manner, transforms the old into the new (and, I’d say, even better than before).

Delightful.

  1. Rachael Perry of WKOW reported after the incident that Bodycam video released after Whitewater principal accused of tackling teen: “”When they came up through my property they started chucking the f toilet paper in my yard,” Mansky said. “I got one kid,” he told the officer. The officer asked what Mansky meant by that, and he replied “I got his hoodie from him.” Mansky later admits to the officer that he watched as the teens were TP-ing area houses and waited for them to approach his. He said he ran after them and tackled one to the ground. That’s when he explained he got the sweatshirt from the teen. The officer asked Mansky if his cameras caught the teens on video. He replied, “I turned them off so they wouldn’t get activated when those little d*** heads came rolling through”….One teen told officers Mansky tackled him to the ground. “He gets me into the headlock, and then I slip again,” the teen said. He claims Mansky stood over him before grabbing him by the neck. “He picked me up from my neck and started strangling me,” he said.” ↩︎
  2. Serendipity and Synchronicity are with me: Although it’s not my normal fare of cat & nature accounts, the Instragram algorithm recommended this account to me only a few days ago. ↩︎
  3. The account’s tagline is invitingly self-aware: “If you don’t roll your eyes, what are we even doing here?” ↩︎

Daily Bread, Economy

Daily Bread for 10.5.24: National Economy Adds Quarter Million Jobs, Surpassing Expectations

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 79. Sunrise is 6:57, and sunset is 6:28, for 11 hours, 31 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent, with 7.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater Pride will hold its 4th annual Pride Rally from 11 AM to 2 PM at the Cravath Lakefront.

On this day in 1921, the World Series is first broadcast on radio (the last experimental best-five-of-nine series, which the Giants won in five games to three over the Yankees).

U.S. economy adds 254,000 jobs in September, exceeding expectations:

The U.S. economy added 254,000 jobs in September and the unemployment rate dropped to 4.1%, blowing away expectations. NBC News’ Christine Romans and editor-in-chief at Investopedia Caleb Silver break down the promising numbers from the September jobs report. 

No reason for Whitewater to waste today’s good national economy on yesteryear’s old–guard fumblers.

Wisconsin Life | Raiders of the Lost Memorabilia:

Michael T. Miller is a big fan of the Indiana Jones films. His home in Sheboygan houses a vast collection of Indy memorabilia — from movie props to signed Harrison Ford photos — spanning decades of fandom. The quest to collect it all, sparked by early childhood memories, has taken Miller and his wife Martha across Wisconsin and beyond.

City, Film

Film: Tuesday, October 8th, 1:00 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Matinee

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Tuesday, October 8th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of Matinee @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:

Comedy/Drama

Rated PG

1 hour, 39 minutes (1993)

Remember “The Fly,” “The Mole People,” and “The Alligator Man”? In a deft spoof of 50’s-60’s horror films, John Goodman portrays a B-movie producer of low–budget monster flicks, sneak-previewing his latest schlocky monster mash of a movie at a Key West theater — on the weekend of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. A real hoot! Wait ‘til you see “The Mant”! (half man/half ant)…

One can find more information about Matinee at the Internet Movie Database.



Daily Bread, Elections, Harris-Walz, Never Trump, Politics, Presidential Race 2024, Republicans, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 10.4.24: Harris, Cheney, and Wisconsin Republicans

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 70. Sunrise is 6:56, and sunset is 6:29, for 11 hours, 34 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent, with 2.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1957, Sputnik 1 becomes the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.

There’s no one who now knows, truly, what will be the outcome of the 2024 presidential race, in Wisconsin or anywhere else. It’s enough to take a position, first to hold that position against opposition, and thereafter to advance from it against opposition. One watches and acts without foreknowledge of the final result. A letter yesterday is like that, as Erik Gunn reports Wisconsin GOP group launches pro-Harris campaign with open letter:


Two dozen Wisconsin Republicans, including former lawmakers, other former elected officials and a GOP sitting district attorney, have signed an open letter declaring their support for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in her campaign for president and condemning the Republican nominee former President Donald Trump.

The Harris campaign released the letter early Thursday, describing it as the product of months of outreach by the campaign and by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin to Republicans.

“We, the undersigned, are Republicans from across Wisconsin who bring the same message: Donald Trump does not align with Wisconsin values,” the letter says. “To ensure our democracy and our economy remain strong for another four years, we must elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to the White House.”

The letter was released as part of the launch of a formal Wisconsin Republicans for Harris-Walz organization, with just over a month to go before the Nov. 5 election.

“Wisconsin Republicans for Harris-Walz will play a pivotal role in facilitating Republican-to-Republican voter contact,” said the Harris-Walz campaign announcement Thursday. Through phone banking and networking with “Republican organizations, businesses, and community groups,” the GOP-oriented group will focus “in part on the more than 120,000 Wisconsinites who voted against Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primary earlier this year,” the campaign announcement said.

Trump’s Wisconsin primary opponent, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, finished with more than 16% of the vote in Ozaukee, 12% in Washington and 14% in Waukesha counties.

Liz Cheney joins Harris rally at historic birthplace of the GOP in swing state Wisconsin:

Daily Bread, Elections, Harris-Walz, Never Trump, Politics, Presidential Race 2024, US Senate Race 2024, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 10.3.24: Perhaps Accurate for a Moment with Much Ahead

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 76. Sunrise is 6:55, and sunset is 6:31, for 11 hours, 37 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent, with 0.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

There will be a Home Buyer’s Educational Event at the Community Engagement Center, 1260 W Main St. in Whitewater from 6 to 7:30 PM.

On this day in 1952, the United Kingdom successfully tests a nuclear weapon in the Montebello Islands, Western Australia, to become the world’s third nuclear power.

The Marquette Law School Poll, a respected survey of political preferences, issued its latest findings yesterday. Here are some key results of their latest work:

I’ve reported poll results before, in these races and others, and yet one should be clear with oneself: these are no more than possible descriptions of sentiment at those brief moments when respondents answered a pollster’s questions.

With differences between the candidates so stark, and thus stakes so high, the course both practical and moral is simply to carry on, march on, and slog on in support of one’s candidates.

If ever one’s conscience were to be one’s guide, now’s the time.

Java In zero-g! How the space coffee cup works:

Astronauts on the International Space Station have a zero-g cup for their java. Find out about it here.

Daily Bread, Elections, Local Government, Voting Rights, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 10.2.24: Clerk Lawfully Returns Drop Box that Wausau’s Mayor Removed

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 71. Sunrise is 6:53, and sunset is 6:33, for 11 hours, 39 minutes of daytime. The moon is new, with none percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater will hold a Healthy Lakes Summit today at 5 PM.

On this day in 1980, Michael Myers becomes the first member of either chamber of Congress to be expelled since the Civil War.

Readers may recall that last week, Wausau Mayor Doug Diny removed “[a] drop box, located outside of City Hall, on Sunday and distributed a picture of himself doing it while wearing worker’s gloves and a hard hat. Diny is a conservative opponent to drop boxes. He insists he did nothing wrong.” See from FREE WHITEWATER Performative Voting Disruption in Wausau.

The Wausau City Clerk now has lawfully placed another ballot drop box outside her city hall. Scott Bauer follows his earlier reporting with Wisconsin city replaces ballot drop box after mayor carted it away:

An absentee ballot drop box that the mayor of a central Wisconsin city removed a week ago was back in place on Monday.

The Wausau city clerk said the box was available outside of city hall “for residents to submit absentee ballots, payments, and other important city requests as was intended.”

Mayor Doug Diny removed the drop box on Sept. 22 without consulting with the clerk, who has the authority under a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling legalizing drop boxes to make one available. They are not mandatory in the state.

Emphasis added. Wausau’s major is not a king1. He’s not even a duke, marquess, earl, viscount, or baron. The lawful authority over drop boxes was not his; he acted outside legal authority.

The law assigns the roles of public officials, and in a free society of limited government they do not (and should not) have more authority than the law allows.

Watch this octopus ‘punch’ a freeloading fish:

  1. A reminder to what’s left of Old Whitewater: this city did not have a mayor during your time, and if not a mayor then neither did Whitewater have a worthy and legitimate ‘unofficial mayor.’ When a few once declared someone an ‘unofficial mayor,’ the term was either a false & arrogant boast or an implicit insult against illegitimate overreaching. Those who thought the term praiseworthy confused praise with condemnation. ↩︎