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Congress, Daily Bread, Politics, Protests, Trump, Trumpism, Wisconsin, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 2.23.25: Expect More of This

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 36. Sunrise is 6:39 and sunset is 5:37, for 10 hours, 58 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 22.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1778,  Baron von Steuben (Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand von Steuben) arrives at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, to help train the Continental Army.

What happens when criticism of controversial policies comes before one of America’s most awkward Congressmen? Nick Rommel reports US Rep. Glenn Grothman faces hostile crowd at Oshkosh town hall meeting:

People booed and jeered at U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman as he walked into the Algoma Town Hall just outside Oshkosh Friday morning.

The Republican congressman from Glenbeulah was there for a town hall meeting with around 100 constituents. After the building hit full capacity, around 50 more stood outside.

He started by commenting on President Donald Trump’s executive orders since taking office a month ago.

“This is moving very quickly compared to other administrations, and I think, across the board, he’s done some very good things,” Grothman said.

Boos and shouts erupted around the room. When Grothman praised orders ending birthright citizenship and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, the crowd only got louder.

See Nick Rommel, US Rep. Glenn Grothman faces hostile crowd at Oshkosh town hall meeting (‘Constituents ask congressman about Medicaid funding, power of Elon Musk’), Wisconsin Public Radio, February 21, 2025.

Outside the town hall:

Inside the town hall:

New video shows stranded father, teen son rescued from Utah mountain:

New video shows the moment a father and his 12-year-old son were rescued from a steep cliffside in Snow Canyon in Utah. The pair was rescued after surviving on supplies that were left behind by another hiker who was previously stranded in the same location. NBC News’ Camila Bernal has the story.

Congress, Daily Bread, Foreign Affairs, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 4.24.24: How Wisconsin’s Federal Representatives Voted on Foreign Aid

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 55. Sunrise is 5:56 and sunset 7:48 for 13h 52m 00s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 99.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1885, American sharpshooter Annie Oakley is hired by Nate Salsbury to be a part of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.

Over at the Washington Post, there are useful tables showing how members of the U.S. House and Senate voted on border measures, sanctions including a TikTok ban, Indo-Pacific aid, Ukraine aid, and Israel aid. (In the Senate, the aid packages and TikTok ban were within a single vote, up or down.)

Wisconsin House Delegation’s Votes:

Wisconsin Senate Delegation’s Votes:

Read full bill text for H.R. 8038 (sanctions, including TikTok ban), H.R. 8036 (Indo-Pacific), H.R. 8035 (Ukraine), H.R. 8034 (Israel), H.R. 3602 (border measures), and H.R 815 (the combined House bill on which the Senate then voted).

Coyote Spotted in New York’s Central Park:

FREE WHITEWATER has repeatedly warned the people of this beautiful city of the danger coyotes represent. Another reminder: if they can occupy Central Park, then they can occupy Whitewater. See Coyotes Begin War Against Humanity and In Whitewater, People Won’t Feed Coyotes — Coyotes Will Feed on People.

City, Congress, Daily Bread, Elections, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 4.19.24: Barca Declares for Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District (Yeah, That’s Not What Extreme Looks Like)

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 53. Sunrise is 6:04 and sunset 7:42 for 13h 38m 41s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 83.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1775,  the Revolutionary War begins with an American victory in Concord during the battles of Lexington and Concord.

One reads that Democrat Peter Barca announces bid for Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District (‘Barca stepped down as secretary of Wisconsin’s Department of Revenue earlier this month’):

Democrat Peter Barca, a former state representative who served in Congress 30 years ago, announced a new congressional run Thursday. 

Barca will attempt to unseat incumbent U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil of Janesville, a Republican, to serve Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District. Barca most recently served as the secretary of Wisconsin’s Department of Revenue, but he stepped down from that role earlier this month.

….

Barca previously served as a U.S. representative for the 1st District from 1993 to 1995. 

The Kenosha resident spent a total of nine terms as a representative in the Wisconsin State Assembly. That included a stint as Democratic minority leader before he stepped down from that role in 2017.

The GOP offered a typically calm & understated reply:

In response to Barca’s announcement, Mike Marinella, spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Barca would be “too extreme for Southeast Wisconsin.”

“Peter Barca has consistently put his out of touch policies ahead of Wisconsinites, and Bryan Steil will have a resounding victory this November,” Marinella said in the statement. 

Barca as extreme would only make sense to people who haven’t seen or heard of Barca. Marinella’s reply is tailored to low-information diehards who think every last person who’s not bright red is, definitionally, an Extremist-Radical-Leftist-Marxist-Socialist-Rastafarian-Syndicalist-Epidemologist.

If anything, Barca is too mild in manner and too tepid in rhetoric for these times. Steil, by contrast, will say whatever he needs to get his base to the polls. If Barca gets the nomination and makes it a close race, then the 1st Congressional District (and Whitewater, especially) can expect Steil to say anything whatever to motivate the conservative populists of the district. If that means falsely describing Whitewater as a dystopia, then Steil (like Trump in Green Bay on 4.2.24) won’t hesitate.

See also The Local Press Conference that Was Neither Local Nor a Press Conference.

Mount Ruang eruption in Indonesia sparks tsunami fear as hundreds evacuate:

Mount Ruang has repeatedly erupted since Tuesday and officials fear it could collapse into the sea and cause a tsunami, as happened in 1871. The alert level for the volcano, which has a peak of 725 meters above sea level, was raised from three to four, the highest level in the four-tiered system

Congress, Conservative Populism, Daily Bread, Trump, Wisconsin, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 4.12.24: So Much for Conservative Populism Before MAGA

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 58. Sunrise is 6:15 and sunset 7:34 for 13h 19m 24s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 18.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies in office; Vice President Harry S. Truman becomes President upon Roosevelt’s death.

When Rep. Mike Gallagher decided to resign from Congress, two longstanding conservative populists announced they were running for the open 8th Congressional District seat. See Wisconsin’s Mike Gallagher Heads for the Exits and Rep. Mike Gallagher Knows that MAGA Will Be Someone Else’s Headache Soon. The two tenured WISGOP populists running in that district have now learned that tenure as conservatives doesn’t matter. It’s sycophancy to Mr. Trump that matters:

With the support of former President Donald Trump, former gas station owner Tony Wied of De Pere entered the race this week for Wisconsin’s open 8th Congressional District — making him the third Republican candidate to announce. 

Wied, who owned six Dino Stop gas stations and convenience stores in Wisconsin until he sold them in 2022, is positioning himself as an outsider, who would look to deliver the “America First change this country needs” in Congress. He officially launched his campaign at an event in Green Bay on Monday evening. 

“Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional District is hungry for an America First outsider,” Wied said in a statement announcing his campaign on Tuesday morning. “For too long, career politicians have failed to deliver the results we desperately need.” 

“I look forward to earning the trust of Wisconsin voters and taking the lessons I’ve learned from three decades of operating businesses in Northeast Wisconsin to Washington, DC,” Wied added.

Two Republicans — former state Sen. Roger Roth of Appleton and current state Sen. André Jacque of De Pere — had already entered the race for the seat, which is open following the surprise departure of U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher, who is set to resign next month. 

Conservative populism is roughly synonymous with MAGA, but only up to the moment the MAGA leader decides otherwise. Afterward, as Jacque and Roth have now learned, past tenure as an ideological stalwart melts before the MAGA leader’s personal preferences.

Japan to give DC more cherry trees:

Congress, Conservative Populism, Daily Bread, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.25.24: Rep. Mike Gallagher Knows that MAGA Will Be Someone Else’s Headache Soon

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 Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 56. Sunrise is 6:46 and sunset 7:14 for 12h 27m 48s of daytime. The moon is full with 99.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM.

On this day in 1655, Christiaan Huygens discovers Saturn‘s largest moon, Titan.

Not every issue from a conservative populist (MAGA, Trumpism, etc.) is an issue of conservative populism. One presumes the conservative populists and other ideological groups all tie their shoes the same way. (Whether Mr. Trump, in particular, can reach his own shoes awaits video evidence.) 

And yet, and yet, some issues are germane to conservative populism, including the shaky GOP majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Of that shaky majority, Rep. Mike Gallagher knows that MAGA will be someone else’s headache soon. Lawrence Andrea reports 8th District Republicans criticize Mike Gallagher’s early departure from Congress: 

Gallagher, who chairs the high-profile select committee on China, received intense scrutiny from his party’s right flank in February after voting against impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and he announced his retirement just days later. His decision Friday to depart before the end of his term has only intensified that ire as some on the right see the move as deliberate to keep Republicans’ House majority slim. 

….

Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said last week Gallagher “should be expelled if he refuses to leave immediately in order to allow his district to hold a special election,” and Bruesewitz said he hopes Greene would move to expel Gallagher should he not resign earlier.

An aide to Greene did not respond to Journal Sentinel questions about her plans. 

Gallagher’s office, meanwhile, labeled false the claims that his departure was a deliberate attempt to hurt Republicans, who will temporarily have just a one-seat majority after April 19, further complicating their ability to pass their agenda. 

A spokesman for Gallagher told the Journal Sentinel that Gallagher’s move was a family decision and said House leadership had been aware of his plans for weeks and approved the timeline. 

It’s improbable that Gallagher cares what Greene, Republicans in the 8th, or anyone else thinks about the timing of his departure. 

Note well, Whitewater: While Gallagher’s departure is a MAGA issue (their politics have wrecked the House GOP caucus), some local issues that local conservative populists present in this town are not MAGA issues at all. They are, instead, issues applicable across the political spectrum. 

Well-read people defending education need not — should not — conflate claims (too much synthesis, too little analysis?). (Of officials in the Whitewater Unified School District, on the board and at Central Office: they do not honor the instituitions from which they were graduated by conflating specific claims with general ideologies.) 

Now, here’s a national issue that is a MAGA issue (and how to address it!) — Rep. Jared Moskowitz Dares Republicans to Impeach Biden:

Congress, Crackpots, Daily Bread, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 2.12.24: Glenn Grothman’s Spare Time

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 Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 43. Sunrise is 6:55 and sunset 5:22 for 10h 27m 34s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 10.5% of its visible disk illuminated. 

Whitewater’s Equal Opportunities Commission meets at 5 PM, the Alcohol Licensing Committee also meets at 5 PM, and the Planning Board meets at 6 PM. 

On this day in 1809, Abraham Lincoln is born. 

 Lawrence Andrea reports Wisconsin’s Glenn Grothman has become one of the most prolific House floor speakers:

Grothman, in fact, delivers more floor speeches than nearly any other House member. Last Congress, he ranked first for number of “special order” speeches delivered and in the top 10 for one-minute speeches — remarks typically given at the end of the day on a topic of a lawmaker’s choosing. He’s continued that trend so far this Congress.

….

So just what does Grothman find important? 

His speeches are wide-ranging and have covered everything from touting the benefits of Vitamin D to fight the effects of the COVID-19 virus to pushing back against diversity and inclusion programs and what he’s called “an obsession with race in our military.”

During one general speech last July, Grothman began by saying he had “a few issues” that ought to be “brought to the attention of the news media to help them with articles that would educate the American public a little bit on issues of importance.” 

He then delivered 29 minutes of remarks in which he pondered the possibility of reaching a settlement in the war between Ukraine and Russia, speculated without evidence that there are more transgender people now than 30 years ago because “it is presented favorably as a lifestyle for a lot of young people,” lamented the “break down” of the nuclear family and railed against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at universities.

So, idle hands are the devil’s workshop after all… 

Man who built the Eiffel Tower with 700K matchsticks awarded world record after all:

Congress, Daily Bread, Politics, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 2.11.24: Wisconsin’s Mike Gallagher Heads for the Exits

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 Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 39. Sunrise is 6:56 and sunset 5:21 for 10h 24m 54s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 3.9% of its visible disk illuminated. 

On this day in 1979, the Iranian Revolution establishes an Islamic theocracy under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

 Joe Schulz reports Green Bay Congressman Mike Gallagher will not seek reelection (‘Announcement comes less than a week after Gallagher voted against impeaching Homeland Security secretary’): 

After four terms in Congress, Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Green Bay, announced Saturday that he will not seek reelection.

The announcement comes less than a week after Gallagher was one of only four Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives to vote against impeachingHomeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The vote failed 214-216.

Gallagher has faced backlash for his vote from other House Republicans, and local Republican Party chapters in his district. Some prominent figures on the right even called for Gallagher to face a primary challenge.

Well, yes, but Gallagher had already decided months ago not to challenge U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, so there has been ample evidence that his political ambitions were temperate rather than hot.

The Paul Ryan route is less contentious and more lucrative:

Paul Ryan was appointed to the Fox Corporation Board of Directors in March 2019 . He is a general partner of the private equity firm Solamere Capital, LLC and chair of the firm’s Executive Partner Group. He is Vice Chairman of Teneo Strategy LLC and also serves on the Advisory Boards of Robert Bosch Gmbh and Paradigm Operations L.P. and the Boards of Directors of Xactus (formerly UniversalCIS) and SHINE Medical Technologies, LLC. Mr. Ryan served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Executive Network Partnering Corporation from 2020 to 2022. He has been a Professor of the Practice, Political Science and Economics, at the University of Notre Dame since 2019. 

Volcanic eruption in Iceland subsides, though scientists warn more activity may follow:

Conflicts of Interest, Congress, Courts, Daily Bread, Ethics, Foul Pursuits, Lobbyists

Daily Bread for 8.14.23: Two Wisconsin Congressmen Beg Court on Behalf of Their Donors

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Good morning. Monday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 70. Sunrise is 6:00 AM and sunset 7:57 PM for 13h 57m 01s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 3.2% of its visible disk illuminated. The Whitewater School Board’s Policy Review Committee meets at 9 AM. In the afternoon, the…

Congress, Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 1.7.23: Only the Best People

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Good morning. Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 35. Sunrise is 7:24 AM and sunset 4:37 PM for 9h 12m 51s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 99.6% of its visible disk illuminated.  On this day in 1904, the distress signal “CQD” is established only to be replaced two…