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Daily Bread for 6.3.24: Update on Another WISGOP Holdover

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 80. Sunrise is 5:17 and sunset 8:28 for 15h 11m 28s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 10.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Equal Opportunities Commission meets at 5 PM, and the Police & Fire Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1965,  NASA launches Gemini 4, a NASA crew’s first multi-day space mission. Ed White, a crew member, performs the first American spacewalk.

Here’s an update on yesterday’s post about Another WISGOP Holdover (After an Encouraging Reminder from Lifetime Schemer Robin Vos). Robert Atwell, who has signaled he’ll overstay his term in the Board of Regents, cannot say no other nominees are pending. Henry Redman reports Evers makes three appointments to UW Board of Regents despite Walker appointee’s refusal to leave:

Gov. Tony Evers on Friday announced three appointments to the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, including one to replace an appointee of Gov. Scott Walker who has said he won’t leave his position despite the expiration of his term. 

In a news release announcing his appointments to the board, which contains 14 citizen members, Evers did not address Robert Atwell’s statement earlier this week that he would be remaining on the board, but said that the body is at a “critical juncture.” 

“Our UW System is at a critical juncture after a decade-long war waged on higher education by Republican lawmakers in our state, the devastating results of which we are seeing firsthand as campuses close their doors, layoff staff, and cut programs,” Evers said. “The work of the UW Board of Regents is as important as ever, and I have full confidence that the three individuals I am appointing today are ready and prepared to face these challenges head-on, to do what is in the best interest for our students, faculty, and staff, and to ensure we have the fully funded, fully functioning UW System that Wisconsinites deserve and that meets the needs of our students, our workforce, and our local communities.”

On Monday, Atwell said in an email to UW System leaders that he wouldn’t be leaving. He’s able to remain on the board because of a legal precedent set by the state Supreme Court after a Walker appointee to the state Natural Resources Board refused to leave for over a year past the expiration of his term. The precedent states that so long as the state Senate, currently controlled by Republicans, does not confirm an appointee’s replacement, that person can remain in their post indefinitely. Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe has also used the ruling to remain in her post despite opposition from Republicans to her continued service in the role. 

Evers appointed Tim Nixon, Jack Salzwedel, and Desmond Adongo to seven year terms. 

Nixon, a commercial lawyer, was appointed to replace Atwell. He has received three degrees from UW schools. 

Can stay and should stay aren’t the same concepts; a well-ordered system is one in which should trumps can.

Conditions allow firefighters to make progress in containing Corral Fire:

Crapweasels, Daily Bread, Speaker Vos, UW System, Wisconsin, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 6.2.24: Another WISGOP Holdover (After an Encouraging Reminder from Lifetime Schemer Robin Vos)

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 77. Sunrise is 5:17 and sunset 8:28 for 15h 10m 23s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 19.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1966,  Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon, becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to soft-land on another world.

Readers will recall Fred Prehn, the dentist-cranberry farmer who refused to leave his seat on the state’s Natural Resouces Board at the expiration of his term. Although the Wisconsin Supreme Court, then with a conservative majority, found his actions lawful, Prehn later left that board, in the way that even the most stubborn ticks dislodge themselves after they’ve gourged long enough. See Tiny Fred Prehn, Fred Prehn, the Most Self-Aware Man in All History, and Frederick Prehn finally resigns from Natural Resources Board.

Now comes another, as Todd Richmond reports Republican-appointed University of Wisconsin regent refuses to step down when term ends:

Then-Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, appointed Robert Atwell to the Board of Regents in May 2017. His seven-year term ends this month. 

Atwell sent an email to Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman, regents President Karen Walsh and regents Executive Director Megan Wasley on Monday saying he won’t step down until he chooses to resign or the state Senate confirms a successor. 

The state Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that political appointees don’t have to leave their posts until the Senate confirms their successor. Atwell said in his email that Assembly Speaker Robin Vos reminded him that he could remain in his position on the regents.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has yet to announce Atwell’s successor. 

“I knew Bob Atwell as a person of high personal integrity,” Evers told The Associated Press on Saturday. “Something has changed.”

Quite a menagerie the WISGOP has: Atwell comports himself as a parasitic arachnid and Vos as a weasel. Admirers, it seems, in their own disordered but surprising fashion, of the animal kingdom.

Mass parachute jump over Normandy kicks off commemorations for the 80th anniversary of D-Day:

Parachutists jumped from World War II-era planes into now peaceful Normandy to kick off a week of ceremonies marking the 80th anniversary of D-Day. Soldiers from across the United States, Britain, Canada and other Allied nations waded ashore through hails of fire on five beaches on June 6, 1944. French officials, grateful Normandy survivors and other admirers are saying “merci” but also goodbye to the fast-dwindling number of D-Day veterans still alive. (AP video by Nicolas Garriga/Production by Jeffrey Schaeffer)

Animals, Crapweasels, Daily Bread, Laws/Regulations, WI DNR, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 2.29.24: Wolf-Baiter Under Investigation

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 Good morning.

This Leap Day in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 43. Sunrise is 6:29 and sunset 5:44 for 11h 15m 00s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 78.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1796, the Jay Treaty between the United States and Great Britain comes into force, facilitating ten years of peaceful trade between the two nations.

People have a right to defend themselves against dangerous animals, including endangered species, but defending against dangerous endangered animals does not include bating them with Kellogg’s snacks. Henry Redman reports Former DNR warden under investigation for wolf killing posted online about baiting in his yard:

A former Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) warden who served on the agency’s committee to create a new wolf management plan for the state is under investigation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for killing a wolf in his yard in December. He has claimed self-defense, but he posted on Facebook in November that he was baiting the animals with doughnuts and rice crispy cereal. 

The warden, Patrick Quaintance, also sits on the Wisconsin Conservation Congress where he holds positions on the body’s fur harvest and bear committees. The conservation congress serves as an important pathway between residents in Wisconsin and environmental policy makers. In the past, conservation groups have complained that the body is controlled by pro-hunting interests. 

….

The investigation into Quaintance was first reported by Wisconsin Public Radio and the Ashland Daily Press. The Examiner has confirmed the investigation with the DNR and U.S. Fish and Wildlife. 

A month before killing the wolf, in November, Quaintance posted a photo of a wolf from a trail camera on his property to his Facebook page. In the comments, he is asked what he’s baiting them with. 

He first responds with an emoji of a doughnut before adding that he used “rice crispy.” Another commenter responds with “snap crackle POP.” 

Because wolves are currently listed by the federal government as endangered in Wisconsin and the upper Midwest, a wolf can only be killed in self-defense. The hunting and trapping of wolves, including the use of bait, are currently illegal in Wisconsin.  

Quaintance did not respond to a request for comment. 

Quaintance’s career places a special burden on him: a warden, or former warden who respects the legacy of his service, cannot uphold the law by breaking it. As a smaller matter, it should be obvious that wolf-hunting with rice crispies is simply a weakling’s method. No bragging rights here, old boy. 

Smoke spews from Mexico’s Popocatepetl volcano:

Crapweasels, Daily Bread, Elections, Fair Maps, Gerrymandering, Legislation, Legislature, Speaker Vos, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 2.14.24: Speaker Vos Rushes While the Rushing is Good

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 Good morning.

Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 45. Sunrise is 6:52 and sunset 5:25 for 10h 32m 57s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 28.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 2018, a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida is one of the deadliest school massacres with 17 fatalities and 17 injuries.

Baylor Spears reports Legislature adopts Evers’s maps in second attempt to choose before state Supreme Court (‘Most Democrats vote no, saying they don’t trust Republicans’):

Six parties submitted maps to be considered and consultants recently said that the two sets of legislative maps submitted by Republican lawmakers and the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) amounted to more partisan gerrymandering.

The consultants did not pick a preferred map, but said the other maps, including Evers’ submission, were “nearly indistinguishable.” Those proposals have been projected to reduce Republican control of the Legislature from its current near-supermajority status 

Republicans lawmakers have found Evers’ maps, which would likely keep a Republican majority, although a smaller one, in the Legislature, preferable to the other submissions before the state Supreme Court. 

“Republicans were not stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Sen. Van Wannggard (R-Racine) said in a statement about the vote. “It was a matter of choosing to be stabbed, shot, poisoned or led to the guillotine. We chose to be stabbed, so we can live to fight another day.” 

….

Vos, who was the only representative to speak during the floor session, also rejected the idea that the move was a legal strategy.

Ahead of the floor sessions, some Democrats expressed concerns that Republicans wanted to pass Evers’ maps and then back a federal legal challenge before Republican-nominated U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Diane Sykes, formerly a conservative justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Such a challenge “could ultimately keep the state with its current gerrymandered maps, Democrats told the progressive news platform Democracy Docket. 

“If we get these new maps, the governor’s maps, signed by the Republicans, it’s more than likely that there’ll be a challenge in the 7th Circuit Court,” U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan said over the weekend. “We’re fearful the Republicans are finally trying to come around to do what they should have done in the first place, but they’re doing it with — I guess the technical term would be ‘with sh-t-eating grins on their faces.’ We can assume that this is not done because of the idea of good government.”

Evers’s maps would be an improvement, but Vos’s trustworthiness is discernible only with an electron microscope. Delays in Evers’s maps, either as implementation within the legislation or by litigation against implementation, would be objectionable. 

Vos does objectionable quite well. 

Note to the special-interest men (movers & shakers, lobbyists, p.r. men, whatever) in Whitewater: looking up to Robin Vos is like looking up to the pigeon that’s gonna relieve itself on a car. Normal people do not respect the men, or the pigeons, who do that.

Ukraine’s forces claim to have destroyed a large Russian landing ship in the Black Sea: