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Daily Bread for 3.13.24: Has Vos Escaped MAGA to Scheme & Plot Another Day?!?

 Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 63. Sunrise is 7:07 and sunset 7:00 for 11h 52m 41s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 14.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1930, the news of the discovery of Pluto is announced by Lowell Observatory.



Legendary Wisconsin schemer and plotter Robin Vos may have escaped the latest MAGA recall attempt against him. Anya van Wagtendonk and the Associated Press report Elections review shows recall targeting GOP leader falls short of signatures needed (‘The fate of the recall effort will likely be decided by the state Supreme Court’): 

Matthew Snorek and other activists said Monday that they submitted about 11,000 signatures to force a recall election of Vos, the powerful Rochester Republican who has frequently sparred with former President Donald Trump. Under state law, the Wisconsin Elections Commission has said it would take 6,850 valid signatures to force a recall election.

But those signatures must come from voters who live in the district Vos represents, which recently changed after Wisconsin’s old legislative map was overturned by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. His new district lines were part of a map that passed the Legislature, which was drawn and signed by Gov. Tony Evers.

According to Wisconsin Elections Commission staff attorney Brandon Hunzicker, recall organizers turned in a total of 9,053 valid signatures, but only 5,905 of those come from Vos’ previous district, the 63rd Assembly District. That would fall 945 signatures short of the total needed.

A memo prepared by Hunzicker for members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission found that just 32 signatures would fall within the boundaries of Vos’ new district, the 33rd Assembly District, which would fall well short of the required threshold. Even when combined with signatures collected from a third district containing territory previously represented by Vos, the organizers would still come up short. 

The Elections Commission has asked A.G. Josh Kaul to request a ruling from the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

So MAGA is chasing Vos and Vos may need a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling to save himself from a recall. 

Someone might want to push a little kibble sprinkled with Xanax under the bed while Vos awaits a determination beyond his control. 


First responders rescue horse that fell into a trench:

Daily Bread for 3.11.24: Do They Have Enough to Recall Vos?

 Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 62. Sunrise is 7:11 and sunset 6:57 for 11h 46m 50s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 1.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Planning Board meets at 6 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.


By Lehnmat – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=89016154. “Incredibly Safe!”

The Associated Press reports Trump supporters hoping to oust Wisconsin leader say they have enough signatures to force recall

MADISON, Wis. — Backers of an effort to oust Wisconsin Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos from office over his opposition to former President Donald Trump announced Sunday that they’ve collected enough signatures to force a recall vote.

Supporters of the recall campaign plan to present signatures Monday to the Wisconsin Elections Commission, saying they have more than the required 6,850 signatures from voters in Vos’ southeast Wisconsin district.

“With more than 10,000 signatures on our recall petition, they’ve said it loud and clear: they’re tired of the status quo and demand new representation,” Matt Snorek, who started the campaign in January, said in a statement.

Vos has dismissed the recall attempt as a waste of time and resources, which he reiterated in a statement Sunday. He questioned the group’s tactics and the validity of the signatures, promising that a team he had assembled would “evaluate each individual signature.”


NASA’s Design for Message Heading to Jupiter’s Moon Europa:

Daily Bread for 2.25.24: WISGOP Holdouts Admit the Truth About Crackpot Special Council Gableman

 Good morning. Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 54. Sunrise is 6:35 and sunset 5:39 for 11h 03m 33s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 98.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1986, the People Power Revolution forces the president of the Philippines Ferdinand…

Daily Bread for 2.23.24: Wisconsin Ethics Commission Alleges Illegal Scheme by Trump Fundraising Committee and Rep. Janel Brandtjen

 Good morning. Friday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 44. Sunrise is 6:39 and sunset 5:37 for 10h 57m 53s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 99.3% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1987, Supernova 1987a is seen in the Large Magellanic Cloud.   WisPolitics.com…

Daily Bread for 2.21.24: SHOCKING: WISGOP SCIENTISTS INVENT TIME MACHINE

 Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 56. Sunrise is 6:42 and sunset 5:34 for 10h 52m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 92.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Parks & Recreation Board meets at 5:30 PM

On this day in 1918, the last Carolina parakeet dies in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo.

By Huub Veldhuijzen van Zanten/Naturalis Biodiversity Center, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45550593


  All my life, I’ve thought that stories of time machines were mere fantasies. How wrong I’ve been.

As it turns out, WISGOP scientists likely have invented a working time machine: 

After watching the Eric Hovde campaign video, the first explanation1 for his appearance and attire is that WISGOP scientists have, in fact, found a way to travel from 2024 back to 1974, to study that earlier era’s aesthetic. 

Astonishing. 

Hovde’s style (and background or politics) isn’t going to work in present-day Wisconsin, but this WISGOP technological advance is impressive nonetheless.


1. The second explanation, far less savory, is that Hovde’s campaign team has been studying old 8mm amateur porn films. See Boogie Nights

Horse seen running down Interstate 95 in Philadelphia:

Daily Bread for 2.20.24: New Maps

 Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 53. Sunrise is 6:43 and sunset 5:33 for 10h 49m 27s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 85.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM. The agenda for the meeting appears immediately below: 

On this day in 1943, The Saturday Evening Post publishes the first of Norman Rockwell‘s Four Freedoms in support of United States President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union address theme of Four Freedoms.


  Gov. Evers has signed new state election maps for Wisconsin that are drawn to his own recommended boundaries. Baylor Spears reports that 

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed new state voting maps Monday morning, which he had proposed and which were passed by the Wisconsin Legislature, creating new legislative districts in time for the 2024 election cycle before the Wisconsin Supreme Court was to choose new maps.

The legislative maps represent a break in Wisconsin Republicans’ grip on legislative power and give Democrats the chance to win additional seats — and majorities in the Legislature — for the first time in over a decade. 

“It’s a new day in Wisconsin,” Evers said at a press conference in the state Capitol to the cheers of surrounding advocates.

“To me, the decision to enact these maps boils down to this: I made a promise to the people of Wisconsin that I would always try to do the right thing and keeping that promise to me matters most, even if members of my own party disagree with me,” Evers said. 

….

“I wanted fair maps, not maps that are better for one party or the other, including my own,” Evers said. “Wisconsin is not a red state and it is not a blue state. Wisconsin is a purple state and I believe our maps should reflect that basic fact. I believe that the people should get to choose their elected officials, not the other way around.” 

Republicans said that they would rather have the maps picked through the legislative process, rather than by the state Supreme Court. Some lawmakers also expressed fears that the Court would choose maps that were worse for Republicans. 

There is a remaining issue of when these new maps take effect.  Rich Kremer reports that 

Democratic state senators, who got their first look at the legislation just before the Senate voted, accused Republicans last week of including the exception [whereby the maps would take effect in November] to guarantee Vos can run under his old district in a potential recall election. That contest is being pursued by conservatives who are angry he’s stood in the wayof impeaching Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe. 

But that effective date was added to the maps bill by the Legislative Reference Bureau, not Republican lawmakers. A bureau memo said the addition “is our standard practice for addressing the initial applicability of a legislative redistricting plan.”

University of Wisconsin-Madison Associate Professor of Law Robert Yablon, who signed onto a legal brief in the redistricting case, told WPR it’s “an open question” as to which maps should apply between now and the November election.

“So, if an early election needed to be held, the likelihood is that someone would need to go back to the Wisconsin Supreme Court and ask what map would be applied,” Yablon said. “And the Wisconsin Supreme Court would need to provide some kind of guidance or remedy.”

Yablon said that because the court has already declared the existing Republican-drawn districts illegal, “it will have to be another map, perhaps the Governor’s map,” even though that map doesn’t go into effect until the fall. 

On Monday, Evers said he will ask the court “to clarify that these maps will be in place for any special elections between now and the fall.”

Yesterday was a good day for Wisconsin.


Monkey Eats From Bird Feeder After Escaping Scottish Wildlife Park:

Daily Bread for 2.19.24: Former WISGOP Chairman Says He Was Tricked (But He’s a Lawyer Who Signed False Documents)

 Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 45. Sunrise is 6:45 and sunset 5:31 for 10h 46m 40s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 78.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater School Board will hold a legislative breakfast at 8 AM, and Whitewater’s Library Board meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1954, the Soviet Politburo of the Soviet Union orders the transfer of the Crimean Oblast from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR.


Anderson Cooper, Aliza Chasan, Sarah Koch, and Madeleine Carlisle report Former Wisconsin Republican Party chair says he was tricked by fake elector plan:

Former Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Andrew Hitt was nominated to be an elector if former President Donald Trump won the state in 2020, but after Trump lost, Hitt and nine other Republican electors met at the state capitol and signed documents falsely claiming Trump won.

Hitt said lawyers told him the documents they were signing were meaningless unless Trump’s legal team won its lawsuit seeking to dismiss over 200,000 votes in two Democratic counties.

Hitt said he was advised that if a court ruled in Trump’s favor and he and the other Republicans did not meet and sign the documents on Dec. 14, 2020 — when the Democratic electors were required to meet to cast their votes for President Biden — he would be responsible for Trump forfeiting Wisconsin.

“It was not a safe time,” he said. “If my lawyer is right, and the whole reason Trump loses Wisconsin is because of me, I would be scared to death.”

….

But Hitt said he didn’t believe there had been widespread fraud in the state.

Hitt said he was advised by the state GOP’s outside legal counsel on Dec. 4, 2020, to gather the other Republican electors at the Capitol on Dec. 14 and, as a contingency, sign a document claiming they were “the duly elected and qualified Electors for President” for Wisconsin. 

“In case a court would overrule the election here in Wisconsin,” Hitt said he was told.

On the morning of Dec. 14, in a narrow 4-3 ruling, the state Supreme Court rejected the Trump campaign’s attempt to throw out votes cast in the two Democratic counties. Hitt said he and the other fake Wisconsin electors met anyway to sign documents falsely claiming Trump won, because he had been told the Trump campaign was still planning to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Hitt is, himself, a lawyer. He signed false documents, and now relies on other lawyers’ opinions in place of his own. He signed false documents and now contends that he was afraid not to sign. (Instead: he was not courageous enough to decline.) 

Hitt is unfit for the law and should be disbarred. No person of good judgment, whether lawyer or non-lawyer, should have sympathy for him. 


Yulia Navalnaya: ‘I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny’:

 

Daily Bread for 2.16.24: Tim Michels 2.0 Eric Hovde Announces U.S. Senate Run

 Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 30. Sunrise is 6:49 and sunset 5:28 for 10h 38m 23s of daytime. The moon is in its first quarter with 50.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1960, the U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton begins Operation Sandblast, setting sail from New London, Connecticut, to begin the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.


Scott Bauer reports Republican businessman Hovde to enter Wisconsin US Senate race against Baldwin

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Multimillionaire Republican businessman Eric Hovde is planning to launch a bid for U.S. Senate against Democratic incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwinnext week.

Hovde campaign spokesperson Ben Voelkel said Thursday that Hovde, 59, will get into the race next week after months of preparation.

….

Hovde’s business empire includes Hovde Properties, a real estate development company founded by his grandfather in 1933, and three banking companies. He is CEO of Sunwest Bank, has appeared in television commercials for them that air out west, and owns a $7 million estate in Laguna Beach, California, in addition to his property in Madison.

He returned to Madison in 2011 after living in Washington, D.C., for 24 years.

Baldwin campaign spokesperson Andrew Mamo derided Hovde as a “mega millionaire California bank owner” who will try to “buy this Senate seat.”

“We look forward to comparing Eric Hovde, a man who was named one of Orange County’s most influential people three years in a row, to Tammy Baldwin, a public servant with a proven track record of standing up to the wealthy and well connected on behalf of middle-class Wisconsin families,” Mamo said in a statement.

Scott Mayer, a Franklin businessman, and former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke are also considering Senate runs. Other higher profile Republicans, including U.S. Reps. Tom Tiffany and Mike Gallagher, opted against running.


Robotic arm catch — Space station astronauts pick up a Cygnus spacecraft

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

 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

Daily Bread for 1.18.24: No, Wisconsin’s Presidential Primary Won’t Matter

 Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 15. Sunrise is 7:20 and sunset 4:50 for 9h 29m 34s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 54% of its visible disk illuminated.

 The Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1977, scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires’ disease.


  So, one reads this morning the question Will Wisconsin’s presidential primary matter? Experts say we’ll see:

While presidential primaries began this week with the Iowa caucuses, both parties may have already selected their nominees by the time Wisconsin voters have a say. 

Wisconsin’s primary elections take place April 2. Most experts expect the nominations to be decided by then, barring some unforeseen event that reshapes the race. 

Most experts are probably right expecting the nomination to be decided by April, without needing a “we’ll see.” Epistemologically, it’s correct to say the significance of the April 2nd presidential primary in Wisconsin will depend on the vote tally on that day measured against any claims about that vote tally. In this way, “we’ll see” is the right answer from either experts or laypeople. “We’ll see,” however, in the title of the story so evades consideration of probabilities (including those from experts cited in this very story) that it’s not much of an answer.

This libertarian blogger will wade into these waters: the April 2nd Wisconsin presidential primary will not matter to the outcome of either major party’s nomination contest. 


Kobe the Husky Saves Philadelphia Neighborhood from Potentially Explosive Gas Leak:

Daily Bread for 1.11.24: Conservative Activists Launch Recall Effort Against Speaker Vos

 Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 31. Sunrise is 7:23 and sunset 4:41 for 9h 17m 56s of daytime. The moon is new with none of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1964, Surgeon General of the United States Dr. Luther Terry, M.D., publishes the landmark report Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the United States saying that smoking may be hazardous to health, sparking national and worldwide anti-smoking efforts.


Anya Van Wagtendonk reports Recall effort launched against Vos (‘Conservative opponents of the powerful Assembly speaker hope to force a recall election in June’):

Conservative activists have launched a recall effort against Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, citing his criticisms of former President Donald Trump and what they describe as an insufficiently right-wing record.

Matthew Snorek, a resident of Union Grove in Racine County, filed the petition to the Wisconsin Elections Commission on Wednesday. Vos, R-Rochester, has represented parts of Racine County in the state Assembly since 2005.

In the complaint, Snorek alleges Vos “is blocking fair elections in WI” and pointed to Vos not contributing to efforts by a small bloc of right-wing Assembly members to impeach Meagan Wolfe, the state’s top election administrator. 

“Wisconsin must move ‘Forward’ without Robin Vos in power,” the complaint reads. 

 In a statement, Vos called the recall “a waste of time, resources and effort.”

….

Snorek’s petition will need to get about 7,000 signatures — calculated as a quarter of votes cast in Vos’ Assembly district in the 2022 gubernatorial race — in order to force a recall election. Organizers are aiming for an election date in June.


Mouse secretly filmed tidying man’s shed every night: