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Daily Bread

America, City, Culture, Daily Bread, Economics, Economy, Tariffs, Taxes/Taxation, Trump, Trumpism, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.11.25: Doubling Down on Ignorant Economics

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 53. Sunrise is 7:13 and sunset is 6:57, for 11 hours, 44 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 93.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1941, President Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act into law, allowing American-built war supplies to be shipped to the Allies on loan.

Monday in America: The Rapidly Declining Economic Climate.

Tuesday in America:

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he will double his planned tariffs on steel and aluminum from 25% to 50% for Canada, escalating a trade war with the United States’ northern neighbor and showing an indifference to recent stock market turmoil and rising recession risks.

Trump said on social media that the increase of the tariffs set to take effect on Wednesday is a response to the price increases that the provincial government of Ontario put on electricity sold to the United States.

“I have instructed my Secretary of Commerce to add an ADDITIONAL 25% Tariff, to 50%, on all STEEL and ALUMINUM COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES FROM CANADA, ONE OF THE HIGHEST TARIFFING NATIONS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD,” Trump posted Tuesday on Truth Social.

After a brutal stock market selloff on Monday and further jitters Tuesday, Trump faces increased pressure to show he has a legitimate plan to grow the economy instead of perhaps pushing it into a recession. But so far the president is doubling down on the tariffs he talked up repeatedly during the 2024 campaign and throwing a once stable economy into utter turmoil as investors expected him to lead with deregulation and tax cuts instead of colossal tax hikes.

See Josh Boak, Rob Gillies, and Michelle Price, Trump doubles planned tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum to 50% as trade war intensifies, Associated Press, March 11, 2025.

Update, 3.12.25: Only hours later on Tuesday, Trump reversed course. (Trump defines decisive down.)

The reporting is sound: tariffs do act as tax hikes, and Trump’s tariffs will be, in effect, colossal tax hikes on consumers and businesses. All America will feel them.

See Firefly’s Blue Ghost moon lander drill, vacuum and deploy electrodes:

The Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost moon lander has begun its work on the moon using its drill, vacuum and electrodes. Blue Ghost has drilled into surface to determine heat flow from interior of Moon. It has deployed four tethered Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS) electrodes and an 8-foot mast to study the deep interior of the moon. Also, it’s Lunar PlanetVac collects lunar soil and more using pressurized nitrogen gas.

America, City, Conservative Populism, Culture, Daily Bread, Economics, Economy, Flop Sweat, Populists, Trump, Trumpism, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.10.25: The Rapidly Declining Economic Climate

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 66. Sunrise is 7:15 and sunset is 6:55, for 11 hours, 41 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 87.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Plan & Architectural Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 2017, the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye of South Korea in response to a major political scandal is unanimously upheld by the country’s Constitutional Court, ending her presidency.

Whitewater is in Wisconsin, and Wisconsin is in America. The economic outlook for America is in decline. Whitewater will not escape national and state trends.

A man with six business bankruptcies now won’t rule out a recession in 2025:

“I hate to predict things like that,” Trump said when pressed about the possibility of a recession during a recorded interview that aired on “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.”

….

The rosy economic outlook that greeted Trump’s return to the White House has dimmed in recent weeks. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.1% in February, boosted by firings in the public sector. And consumer confidence fellby the most in any given month since August 2021. 

American consumers share concerns that tariffs will raise prices on everyday goods, while corporate CEOs are eager for clarity as the president has continually announced and then rolled back new tariff packages. His moves last week, levying and then delaying 25 percent tariffs on a major chunk of Mexican and Canadian goods until April, are just the latest example. The confusion has sent markets scrambling. The S&P 500 fell by more than 3 percent on the week.

See Gregory Svirnovskiy, Trump won’t rule out a recession in 2025, POLITICO, March 9, 2025.

The conservative populists have no sound grasp of economics, as theirs is a movement of cultural revenge, not economics. Trump’s first term was an economic failure, yet many of them delusionally imagine him as an economic guru.

Truth in advertising: Come for the culture war, stay for the recession.

Stocks take another tumble after Trump’s weekend comments on inflation:

Conservative Populism, Culture, Daily Bread, Populists, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.9.25: Costs & Efficiencies Are Mere Pretenses for the Populists

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 59. Sunrise is 7:16 and sunset is 6:54, for 11 hours, 38 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 79.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1862, the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (rebuilt from the engines and lower hull of the USS Merrimack) fight to a draw in the Battle of Hampton Roads, the first battle between two ironclad warships.

The populists don’t seek government efficiency merely for its own sake. The use government efficiency as a means to pressure others into silence over speech the populists don’t like:

An Assembly Republican is using the authority of the Elon Musk-inspired GOAT Committee to investigate the diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives of local governments across the state before the committee has even met.

Rep. Shae Sortwell, R-Two Rivers, the committee’s vice chair, confirmed Thursday he sent or plans to send information requests to all 72 counties and the state’s 50 largest cities. Wisconsin Watch first reported Thursday that Sortwell had sent requests on Feb. 20 to multiple cities and counties. 

The requests state that GOAT “has been charged with undertaking a review of county use of taxpayer dollars for positions, policies, and activities related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Sortwell’s emails ask for “documentation” from January 2019 to the present relating to the following items:

  • DEI-related grants the communities may have received.
  • the communities’ “adopted/enacted” DEI policies. 
  • any DEI training programs the communities might be involved with.
  • the titles and salaries of employees with DEI-related positions. 
  • and the “estimated associated costs” of DEI-related policies and trainings.

Officials for Fitchburg, Manitowoc, Oshkosh and Racine told Wisconsin Watch their respective cities plan to treat and fulfill Sortewll’s request like any other public records request they receive.

Sortwell did not respond to questions for Wisconsin Watch about his information requests and the committee’s work.

See Jack Kelly, Republican uses GOAT Committee authority to investigate local government diversity efforts, Wisconsin Watch, February 26, 2025.

Of course they do: no group in America is more disturbed by contrary speech than the conservative populists. Critique their work, and they experience narcissistic injury rarely otherwise seen1. They insist that they want free speech, but blanch2 at criticism, and when in power define speech that they do not like as unlawful.

It’s all about speech with them, until it’s not. It’s all about local control with them, until it’s not.

Populism3 is a horde’s insecurities and vendettas transformed into a political movement.

______

  1. At least, rarely seen outside an institutional setting. ↩︎
  2. In their case, even paler than normal. ↩︎
  3. See also Jan-Werner Müller, What is Populism? (2016). ↩︎

Multiple wildfires burned earlier this week in Tennessee:

Birds, Climate, Daily Bread, Nature, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.8.25: Warmer Wisconsin Winters Changing Ancient Sport of Falconry

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 48. Sunrise is 6:18 and sunset is 5:53, for 11 hours, 35 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 70.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1983, while addressing a convention of Evangelicals, Ronald Reagan labels the Soviet Union an “evil empire.” (It was, and the Russian Federation still is.)

Warmer Wisconsin Winters Changing Ancient Sport of Falconry:

Closeup:

Daily Bread, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.7.25: Wisconsin Life | Nonprofit Builds Boats and Confidence

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will see snow showers and rain with a high of 38. Sunrise is 6:20 and sunset is 5:52, for 11 hours, 32 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 61.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1799, after Napoleon captures Jaffa in Palestine, his troops proceed to kill more than 2,000 Albanian captives.

Wisconsin Life | Milwaukee nonprofit builds boats and confidence with local youth:

All Hands Boatworks, a grassroots Milwaukee organization, guides youth through wooden boat building projects. Starting from the humble beginnings of just a car trunk of tools, the nonprofit now teaches hundreds of students annually to construct 12-foot rowing boats.

Debris from SpaceX Starship flight 8 explosion streaks across Bahamas night sky:

Stefanie Waldek captured footage of SpaceX Starship debris streaking across the night sky from the Bahamas on March 6, 2025. Read more: https://www.space.com/space-explorati… Starship lost attitude control around 8 minutes into flight and exploded on re-entry. Full Story: https://www.space.com/space-explorati… Credit: Stefanie Waldek | edited by Space.com’s Steve Spaleta (https://x.com/stevespaleta)

Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Musk, Politics, Populists, Schimel, Trump, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.6.25: Mr. Trump’s Little Helper

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 40. Sunrise is 6:21 and sunset is 5:50, for 11 hours, 29 minutes of daytime. The moon is in its first quarter with 49.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Arts Commission meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1967,  Joseph Stalin‘s daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva defects to the United States. (She later moved to Wisconsin, and passed away in Richland Center.)

Brad Schimel, candidate for a seat of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, would be happy as a footstool for Trump:

Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel told a group of canvassers in Waukesha County last weekend that he needs to be elected to provide a “support network” for President Donald Trump and shared  complaints about the 2020 election that have been frequently espoused by election deniers. 

In a video of the remarks, Schimel is speaking to a group of canvassers associated with Turning Point USA — a right-wing political group that has become increasingly active in Wisconsin’s Republican party. 

….

“Donald Trump doesn’t do this by himself, there has to be a support network around it,” Schimel said.

Which conspiracies are on Schimel’s mind? These:

Schimel pointed to the issue of special voting deputies in nursing homes as a major problem. 

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, officials known as special voting deputies who normally go into nursing homes to help residents cast absentee ballots were unable to enter those facilities. 

Republicans have claimed that decision allowed people who should have been ineligible to vote because they’d been declared incompetent to cast a ballot. Conspiracy theorists have pointed to affidavits filed by family members of nursing home residents that their relatives were able to vote. Only a judge can declare someone incompetent to vote, however. 

The issue led to the Republican sheriff of Racine County to accuse members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) of committing felony election fraud and became a target in former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman’s widely derided review of the 2020 election. 

Schimel also blamed the election commission’s decision to exclude the Green Party’s candidates from the ballot that year for Trump’s loss. WEC voted not to allow the party on the ballot because there were errors with the candidate’s addresses on the paperwork. The party sued to have the decision overturned, but the Supreme Court ruled 4-3 against the party because it was too close to the election. 

While conservatives held the majority on the Court at the time, Schimel  blamed liberals. 

See Henry Redman, Schimel tells canvassers he’ll be ‘support network’ for Trump and rehashes election conspiracies, Wisconsin Examiner, March 6, 2025.

See also FREE WHITEWATER, We Now Know that Schimel Has Lied at Least Once (Could Be More!) and Wisconsin Politico Swears He’s the Most Apolitical Man Alive.

If you’ve AppleTV+, then a recommendation: Berlin ER (Krank: Berlin). Here’s the trailer in the original German, with English subtitles:

Campaign Ads, Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Musk, Politics, Populists, Schimel, Wisconsin, WisDems, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 3.5.25: No Time Like the Present for an Ad Against Musk

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be rainy with 42. Sunrise is 6:23 and sunset is 5:49, for 11 hours, 26 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 38.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Starin Park Water Tower Committee meets at 6 PM and the Landmarks Commission meets at 7 PM.

On this day in 1770, at the Boston Massacre, five Americans, including Crispus Attucks, are fatally shot by British troops in an event that would contribute to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War five years later.

I’m not a Democrat, but from my NeverTrump perspective, there’s no time like the present for a ‘People v Musk’ ad campaign:

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin is working to tie state Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel to Elon Musk with an ad campaign titled the “People v. Musk.”

The move comes as Musk’s prominence has grown in national politics for his role cutting government spending under President Donald Trump, and after groups backed by Musk have spent millions attacking Schimel’s opponent, Dane County Judge Susan Crawford.

The first ad from what the state Democratic Party is calling a “seven-figure” campaign references the firing of air traffic controllers and federal funding cuts initiated by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. The ad repeatedly shows video of video of Musk making a straight-armed gesture on the day of Trump’s inauguration.

See Rich Kremer, Democrats launch ‘People v Musk’ ad campaign in Wisconsin Supreme Court race, Wisconsin Public Radio, March 5, 2025.

It’s lawful to spend money on the race, and it’s lawful to criticize others for their spending on the race. Both are true.

Musk, however, is only appealing to people who will accept anything in the place of a good thing. Keep going.

See also FREE WHITEWATER, Musk’s PAC Puts in Six Figures for Schimel and Musk Drops More on Schimel in Wisconsin (Of Course He Does).

Eaglets:

Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Musk, Politics, Populists, Schimel, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.4.25: Wisconsin, National Yet Again

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with afternoon showers and a high of 52. Sunrise is 6:25 and sunset is 5:48, for 11 hours, 23 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 27.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1944, after the success of Big Week, the USAAF begins a daylight bombing campaign of Berlin.

Wisconsin is a small Midwestern state of under six million people. She’s also a state that punches far above the weight of a small Midwestern state of under six million people. It’s true yet again:

President Donald Trump and adviser Elon Musk’s policies will get their first major test at the ballot box this spring in an election that will determine who controls the Wisconsin Supreme Court and shape the future of abortion rights and union power in the swing state.

Two years ago, liberals gained a 4-3 majority on the court after 15 years of conservative control. They threw out legislative maps that gave Republicans commanding majorities in the statehouse, reinstated the use of absentee ballot drop boxes and accepted cases that will decide whether abortion remains legal in the state.

But with a liberal justice retiring this year, conservatives now have a shot at regaining the majority. If they do not, liberals are poised to control the court until at least 2028, and interest groups are expected to file redistricting litigation that could give Democrats one or two more seats in Congress.

See Patrick Marley, Wisconsin Supreme Court race puts Trump and Musk at center stage, Washington Post, March 3, 2025.

See also FREE WHITEWATER, Musk’s PAC Puts in Six Figures for Schimel and Musk Drops More on Schimel in Wisconsin (Of Course He Does).

Firefighters struggle to contain seven-day wildfire in north-eastern Japan:

Firefighters are struggling to contain a wildfire in north-eastern Japan which has been burning for seven days. A number of homes have been burned in a small coastal town near Ofunato city in Iwate prefecture, and thousands of people have been evacuated. Largest wildfire in decades rages in Japan as authorities warn it could spread.

Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Politics, Populists, Schimel, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.3.25: Wisconsin Politico Swears He’s the Most Apolitical Man Alive

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 51. Sunrise is 6:26 and sunset is 5:46, for 11 hours, 20 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 17.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1969, NASA launches Apollo 9 to test the lunar module.

By NASA / Russell L. Schweickart – Apollo archive (search by alternate ID number), Archive.org, Public Domain, Link

Political man running for a judicial office insists he’s not political at all:

[At Brad] Schimel’s “Hispanic roundtable” Thursday, the state Republican Party was fully engaged. Republican Party of Wisconsin Executive Director Brian Schimming and former Republican candidate for attorney general Eric Toney were in attendance, rubbing elbows with the John Birch Society members. 

“Because people in this state and people in this city and people on the South Side need somebody who’s gonna have them top of mind and protecting victims and doing the right thing, stand up for the rule of law, all the things that we all want,” Schimming said. “And you would expect that would be easier for people to do, but it really takes somebody of great courage, somebody who’s honest and somebody who’s forthright, to step up at times like this.”

One attendee, filming Schimel’s remarks, wore #LoomersArmy hat, merch that can be purchased on the website of the Laura Loomer Fan Club. Loomer is a right-wing media personality and activist whom U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has called “extremely racist.” 

Schimel was introduced at the event by Marty Calderon and Mariano Garcia, two pastors on Milwaukee’s South Side who have been involved in the creation of the Republican Party’s office in the neighborhood. 

In his opening prayer, Garcia criticized Black, Hispanic and LGBTQ people.

See Henry Redman, Schimel preaches impartiality to right-wing groups, Wisconsin Examiner, March 3, 2025.

Schimel’s campaign is wholly political, and he’ll win or lose based on his strength with MAGA, Dark MAGA, Burnt Orange MAGA, Mango Tango1 MAGA, whatever.

See also FREE WHITEWATER, Could You Calm Down? But Wow, That Black Robe Looks Great on You…, We Now Know that Schimel Has Lied at Least Once (Could Be More!), and Brad Schimel’s Work Ethic.

______

  1. Crayola never disappoints. ↩︎

Wildfires in North and South Carolina burn near homes:

Dozens of wildfires burning in South Carolina prompted the governor to declare a state of emergency.

Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Schimel, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.2.25: Could You Calm Down? But Wow, That Black Robe Looks Great on You…

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 35. Sunrise is 6:28 and sunset is 5:46, for 11 hours, 18 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 9.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Public Domain, Link

On this day in 1933, the film King Kong premieres in Radio City Music Hall and RKO Roxy in New York City.

Brad Schimel’s political positions shift audience to audience, but he attracts a crowd among which expressions like ball and chain, little woman, the wife, and hausfrau are, let’s say, probably not uncommon. That’s his crowd, those are his people. He needs them in April.

And so, and so, there’s no surprise that he sees liberal women on the Wisconsin Supreme Court as overly emotional. Here’s Schimel on a radio show recorded in November:

“The other thing that I noted, there were times that when that camera went on several of the liberal justices, they were on the brink of losing it. You could see it in their eyes, and you could hear it in the tone of their voice,” he told conservative talker Meg Ellefson on WSAU-AM (550) and its sister stations in Wausau and Stevens Point. “They are being driven by their emotions. A Supreme Court justice had better be able to set their personal opinions and their emotions aside and rule on the law objectively. This is — we don’t have that objectivity on this court.”

(Emphasis in original.)

Asked about these remarks in February, Schimel was more specific:

“It’s plainly clear that that one of the justices, at least, was not able to stay objective. She had lost control of her emotions,” Schimel said after a roundtable talk at the GOP’s Hispanic center in Milwaukee. “Men do that, too, but she could not stay objective. In that case, she was literally yelling at an attorney.”

And which justice was that? Schimel clarified, “The one that was yelling at the attorney was Justice Karofsky. She was plainly yelling.”

See Daniel Bice, Was it sexist for Brad Schimel to say liberal justices, all women, were ‘driven by their emotions’?, February 28, 2025.

The oral argument was on 11.11.24; Justice Karofsky wasn’t yelling. She was conventionally and appropriately assertive, and no more so than many men on the bench in jurisdictions across the country. See Josh Kaul v. Joel Urmanski, 23AP2362 (Wis. Nov. 11, 2024) (oral argument) available at https://wiseye.org/2024/11/11/wisconsin-supreme-court-josh-kaul-v-joel-urmanski/.

It’s only ‘plainly clear‘ in Schimel’s mind, and the minds of those who share his outlook. Schimel knows that few in his crowd will review the full recording of oral argument at the court, and even if they were to do so, they’d not have a statewide or national context for what they saw.

They’ll simply take Schimel’s unreliable word for it.

FedEx cargo plane’s engine ignites in flames after bird strike:

Daily Bread, Science/Nature, Space

Daily Bread for 3.1.25: What Happens When You Send Unusual Objects to Space?

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 29. Sunrise is 6:30 and sunset is 5:44, for 11 hours, 15 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 3.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1872,  Yellowstone National Park is established as the America’s first national park.

What Happens When You Send Flowers to Space?:

What’s Up: March 2025 Skywatching Tips from NASA:

What are some skywatching highlights in March 2025? March has great opportunities to spy fast-moving Mercury, stay up late to enjoy a total eclipse of the Moon, and learn about the dark side of the Moon! 0:00 Intro 0:11 Planet observing 0:34 Spot Mercury 1:24 Total lunar eclipse 2:32 Dark Side of the Moon 3:41 March Moon phases.

Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Politics, Schimel, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 2.28.25: We Now Know that Schimel Has Lied at Least Once (Could Be More!)

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 53. Sunrise is 6:31 and sunset is 5:43, for 11 hours, 12 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 0.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1844,  a gun explodes on board the steam warship USS Princeton during a pleasure cruise down the Potomac River, killing six, including Secretary of State Abel Upshur. President John Tyler, who was also on board, was not injured from the blast.

Brad Schimel, a judge and candidate for a place on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, is pickled in politics. There’s not much more to him. And so, and so, he’ll say what he feels he needs to say, one audience to the next:

Schimel’s exposition of his judicial philosophy has shifted when he speaks to different audiences. 

Speaking to law students and Milwaukee voters at the Marquette event, when asked about federal judges’ role in thwarting Trump’s executive orders to end birthright citizenship, give Musk access to massive troves of personal data and stop congressionally appropriated funds from being disbursed, Schimel said it’s a judge’s role to define the limits of executive authority. 

“When there’s a dispute about whether that exercise of power is legitimate or not, well, then it may have to be the court that resolves that dispute,” he said. 

However, in a radio appearance with right wing host Vicki McKenna, he accused federal judges of “acting corruptly” for issuing temporary restraining orders against the dismantling of federal agencies.

See Henry Redman, Supreme Court candidate Schimel tells voters he’s not political, Wisconsin Examiner, February 27, 2025.

Photo by Miracle Seltzer on Unsplash

See also @ FREE WHITEWATER, Brad Schimel Experiences the Insatiable Nature of Populism and Brad Schimel’s Work Ethic.

See Blue Ghost’s amazing view of the moon from 62 miles up:

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander captured stunning views of the moon from about 62 miles (100 km) above the surface. The footage, sped up 10 times, was captured on Feb. 24, 2025 during its third orbital maneuver.

City, Culture, Daily Bread, Entitlement, Reasoning

Daily Bread for 2.27.25: The Sad Legacy of a Status-Based Culture

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 42. Sunrise is 6:33 and sunset is 5:42, for 11 hours, 9 minutes of daytime. The moon is new with 0.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1782, the House of Commons of Great Britain votes against further war in America.

A key aspect of Old Whitewater was that it was a status-based culture. Who’s who mattered a lot. Which family, etc. I’ve satirized that outlook (‘town squires,’ ‘town notables’) only because it was, and is, nuttily narrow. We are a town of fifteen-thousand equal & ordinary people, not fifteen important people. (If everyone in this town had always felt on this point as I do, there would have been less community need for Excedrin and Korbel1.)

And yet, and yet, if I’ve thought it absurd, others have taken that status-based view of the world, that hierarchy, as though a law of nature. They grew up with it, were assured by their parents that it would be unchanging, and that they in their time would be as influential as their parents were in the generation before.

It hasn’t worked out that way.

Our present time, in Whitewater, in Wisconsin, and America has a different outlook. Ours is an unsettled time, where nice hierarchies no longer matter. Over the last decade, that old way has faded in this town2, and the fading has left older men grasping for their placed in a changed city.

There’s another problem the remaining status-based old guard faces: they have not developed skill at reasoned argument (as it was unnecessary if one could simply demand a result based on status). Their idea of an argument is sometimes little more than words wrapped around a question: DYKWIA?

Good argumentation is hard, and takes time, to produce. Indeed, it’s hardest for those who are truly skillful, as they can see how much can (and should) be done.

_____

  1. Potable, and popular here in Wisconsin, but there’s better available. ↩︎
  2. It’s faded across all America, honest to goodness. We’re a freer and more egalitarian society for it. ↩︎

3,000 Golden Retrievers. Go, Dogs, Go:

Daily Bread, Politics, Speaker Vos, Trump, Trumpism, Wisconsin, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 2.26.25: Sure, Whatever, but Trump Is Only ‘Tight’ with Trump

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Good morning.

Whitewater in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 45. Sunrise is 6:34 and sunset is 5:41, for 11 hours 6 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 2.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1815,  Napoleon escapes from exile on the island of Elba (in the brig Inconstant  with about 1,000 men and a flotilla of seven vessels).

Speaker Robin Vos wants Wisconsin, America, and the Whole Wide World to know that he’s now “tight” Trump:

Just a few years after President Donald Trump backed a primary challenger against Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, the Rochester Republican says he and the president are “tight.” 

As reporter Anya van Wagtendonk catalogs, and Wisconsinites remember, it wasn’t always this way:

The comments from Vos about Trump were hardly a surprise, but they followed years of tension between the two GOP leaders that nearly resulted in Vos losing his job.

In 2022, Trump backed Republican Adam Steen in his bid to defeat Vos, calling the speaker a “RINO,” short for Republican In Name Only, on social media and on the campaign trail. Vos narrowly escaped the primary before easily winning that year’s general election.

Trump regularly criticized Vos for not doing more to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin, a step election law experts said was both unconstitutional and impossible. And after the 2022 midterms didn’t go as well for Republicans as they’d hoped, Vos urged the party to move on from Trump.

See Anya van Wagtendonk, Despite rocky past, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos says he’s ‘tight’ with Trump White House, Wisconsin Public Radio, February 25, 2025.

Vos bullies the vulnerable, but is, himself, easily bullied. Trump, by contrast, easily bullies.

Vos will find himself a target yet again.

New Jersey officer rescues dog from frozen lake: