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Daily Bread for 9.29.24: 8 Clips of Trump at Prairie du Chien, Only Yesterday

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 78. Sunrise is 6:50, and sunset is 6:38, for 11 hours, 48 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent, with 9.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1789, the United States Department of War first establishes a regular army with a strength of several hundred men.

The Prairie du Chien Area Arts Center, where Trump held an indoor rally yesterday, is 142 miles by road from Whitewater. Not far at all. Whitewater has had a bitter taste of what grandstanding and lying against immigrants can mean. See The Local Press Conference that Was Neither Local Nor a Press Conference. We are fortunate that we have not experienced even worse lies about our city. See It Might Have Been Us.

Trump’s full remarks at that Prairie du Chien venue are available online. Aaron Rupar and Acyn have published pertinent clips from his remarks.

1. Trump lies about conditions in Wisconsin when he says that “I will liberate Wisconsin from this mass migrant invasion of murderers, rapists, hoodlums, drug dealers, thugs, and vicious gang members.”

Wisconsin is not beset this way; Whitewater is not beset this way. Whitewater, in particular, is a beautiful place to live. Indeed, I wish more people would move here. There’s no better place to live.

Trump’s claims about immigrant crime statistics nationwide are false. See Daniel Dale, Fact check: To attack Harris, Trump falsely describes new stats on immigrants and homicide:

Former President Donald Trump is wildly distorting new statistics on immigration and crime to attack Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump falsely claimed Friday and Saturday that the statistics are specifically about criminal offenders who entered the US during the Biden-Harris administration; in reality, the figures are about offenders who entered the US over multiple decades, including during the Trump administration. And Trump falsely claimed that the statistics are specifically about people who are now living freely in the US; the figures actually include people who are currently in jails and prisons serving criminal sentences.

2. Trump insists “You gotta get these people back where they came from. You have no choice. You’re gonna lose your culture.” Which culture? He’s speaking to his audience, not all Americans. Many have forefathers who came here generations ago, before the Revolution, whether willingly or in enslavement — Trump’s culture is not their culture. He, himself, looks — and is — unacculturated. It is instead many newcomers from so many parts of the world who look — and are — properly acculturated. The nation benefits from their presence.

3. Trump insists that “these people [immigrants] are animals.” Immigrants aren’t animals; Trump’s crowd wants to believe immigrants are animals. Trump’s audiences feel better about themselves if they’re given his permission to feel worse about others.

4. Trump notices a fly in the room (“Oh, there’s a fly. I wonder where the fly came from”) and implies that immigrants brought the fly. There were no immigrants in the room, so perhaps that insect’s presence has another, more proximate cause.

5. Trump pits racial minority against racial minority: “They’re taking all of our Black population’s jobs.” Trump has a long history of racial discrimination in his businesses; his professed regard for Black workers is disingenuous.

6. Trump whines about Kamala Harris’s border remarks from Friday that “then I have to sit there and listen to her bullshit last night. And who puts it on? Fox News. And they shouldn’t be allowed to put it on.” He’s a weak & vain man who wants to talk but cannot brook the contrary speech of others. (Kamala Harris’s thorough assessment of immigration is available at Harris delivers campaign remarks in Arizona after visit to border. See also FREE WHITEWATER, VP Kamala Harris (and Republicans & Trump) on Border Security.)

7. Trump remarks that “global warming doesn’t work anymore, because it’s actually cooling.” He confuses a change in terminology with a change in environmental forces, and fallaciously implies that the former negates the veracity of the latter. Trump plays to the willing, delighted ignorance of his audience.

8. Trump contends that there were “40 to 50,000 people at least out there… It looked like when Lindbergh landed in New York. Do you remember that? Thousands of people… they’re probably leaving and walking home.” The entire city of Prairie du Chien has a population of only about 5,500. There were never forty to fifty thousand people outside. Indeed, the ordinary venue at which he spoke holds only 766 at capacity.

A small point, by the way, in light of his other remarks: Lindbergh did not land in New York — he landed in Paris.

Trump has his history, like so much else, backwards.

Bigotry, City, Daily Bread, Immigration, Mendacity

Daily Bread for 9.16.24: It Might Have Been Us

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 86. Sunrise is 6:37, and sunset is 7:01, for 12h 23m 50s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 96.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Library Board meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1908, the General Motors Corporation is founded.

Someone sees a burning house in the distance, and wonders whether it might be his house on fire. Perhaps, in those moments, he offers a prayer: Dear God, let this not be my house. And yet, and yet, there is a fire, and someone’s house is burning, and so asking that another might instead bear the loss is a selfish request. A more loving request of the divine: Dear God, let no one be injured and the damage be slight.

Note well: For all the dark publicity and fear-mongering about immigrants in Whitewater, worse lies about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, might have befallen us. See of Whitewater The Local Press Conference that Was Neither Local Nor a Press Conference. The scheming politicians who came to Whitewater were simply less ambitious than the ones who have afflicted Springfield.

I’ll not say that I am grateful misery has struck an innocent population in Springfield, Ohio, as I would not want suffering elsewhere. It is right only to hope that the racist lies told about Springfield cease, and that that town’s Haitian residents suffer no further injury.

Of human affairs, however, one can say this: those who came to Whitewater with matches might have caused a worse fire for us, and we need look only to Ohio to see how a few more matches, a few more lies, might have engulfed us.

Springfield on edge after lies:

Bigotry, City, Daily Bread, Racism, University

Daily Bread for 1.23.24: Neo-Nazis Arrive Into, and Depart from, Whitewater

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 Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be snowy with a high of 37. Sunrise is 7:17 and sunset 4:56 for 9h 39m 22s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 95.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 5 PM. 

On this day in 1986, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts its first members: Little Richard, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley.

  Dozens of stories, many from national publications, now report on the arrival and departure on late Sunday afternoon (1.21.23) of the of the neo-Nazi Blood Tribe onto the UW-Whitewater campus. Of those stories, reporting from Kimberly Wethal at the Wisconsin State Journal, UW-Whitewater condemns antisemitic incident on campus, is the most concisely informative:

UW-Whitewater’s chancellor is condemning an incident Sunday night during which a small group of people projected Nazi and antisemitic imagery on the side of a residence hall and chanted white supremacist slogans.

Shortly before 5:45 p.m. Sunday, campus police received reports of four people, dressed all in red, standing outside Knilans residence hall on the east side of campus, chanting phrases such as “there will be blood” and projecting a swastika and antisemitic phrases onto the side of the residence hall.

The group’s actions and appearance are consistent with members of “the Blood Tribe,” a Neo-Nazi group that has made two appearances at UW-Madison and a pro-LGBT event in Watertown last year.

The group’s goal is to scare or intimidate people with their presence, according to the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that fights antisemitism and extremism in the U.S.

In an email to students and staff, UW-Whitewater Chancellor Corey King called the actions of the group “abhorrent,” adding that they go against the university’s core values.

“At UW-Whitewater, we strive to create a safe community where everyone feels a sense of belonging. We take pride in our Warhawk family. We reject hate in all its forms,” King said. “On this first day of the new semester, I ask all of us to reaffirm our commitment to our core values and not let the actions of an outside group that seeks to incite hate, division and fear take us off course.”

In the email, King said the university has no reason to believe the group presents a threat to campus, and the group left shortly after police were called. But university police have increased patrols.

One cannot say whether this fanatical band will be back, but they were not from here, were not welcome here, and will never be welcome here. 

NISAR: Tracking Earth’s Changes From Space (Mission Overview):

Bigotry, City, Conservative Populism, Conspiracy Theories, Cruelty, Culture, Daily Bread, Kulturkampf, School District

Daily Bread for 3.3.23: When Neither Sympathy Nor Empathy Are Present

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Good morning. Friday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 41. Sunrise is 6:25 AM and sunset 5:47 PM for 11h 21m 28s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 85.8% of its visible disk illuminated.  On this day in 1931, the United States adopts The Star-Spangled Banner as its national…

Bigotry, City, Conservative Populism, Conspiracy Theories, Cruelty, Culture, Daily Bread, Kulturkampf

Daily Bread for 3.2.23: The Late Pete Carril’s Approach Applied to Whitewater’s Politics

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Good morning. Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 39. Sunrise is 6:27 AM and sunset 5:46 PM for 11h 18m 34s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 79.4% of its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission will meet at 6 PM and there will be a Whitewater Aquatic and Fitness…

Bigotry, Conspiracy Theories, Covidiocy, Crackpots, Disinformation, Sen. Ron Johnson, Trumpism, U.S. Senate, Unfit

Sen. Ron Johnson: ‘An all-access purveyor of misinformation’

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Ron Johnson, one of the two United States senators representing Wisconsin, has earned a new epithet: BROOKFIELD, Wis. — Senator Ron Johnson incited widespread outrage when he said recently that he would have been more afraid of the rioters who rampaged the Capitol on Jan. 6 had they been members of Black Lives Matter and…

Bigotry, Culture, Education, Law

Responsibility for Students, Patients, or Clients

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Yesterday, Georgetown Law fired an adjunct law professor after publication of a Zoom call in which she deprecated the abilities of many of her Black law students. See Georgetown Law professor terminated after ‘reprehensible’ comments about Black students.   Here’s the most objectionable part of her remarks from the video call: “I hate to say…

Bigotry, Sloth

The Villages as a Dystopian America

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Much has been made – understandably – about an elderly golf-cart-riding resident of The Villages retirement community shouting ‘white power’ during a pro-Trump parade. (The man’s bigotry is wrong, but his grasp of the meaning of Trumpism is right on target.) It’s impossible to excuse the bigotry, but one can look at other vices within…