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Fifth Columnist

Daily Bread for 8.28.24: Live by Siphoning, Perish by Siphoning

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 83. Sunrise is 6:16, and sunset is 7:34, for 13h 17m 38s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 27.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Lakes Advisory Committee meets at 4:30 PM, and the Finance Committee meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1830, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad‘s new Tom Thumb steam locomotive races a horse-drawn car, presaging steam’s role in U.S. railroads.


Yesterday’s post looked at the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s dismissal of a complaint designed to keep the Green Party off the Wisconsin 2024 presidential ballot. See Green Party Worries Needlessly about Risks to Its Vote-Siphoning Operation in Wisconsin.

And look, and look: in an alternative history of our time, there might have been a legitimate Green Party candidate fighting for environmental issues, etc. That’s not Jill Stein. She is Putin’s catspaw: easily a fellow traveler, if not a fifth columnist. Her presence on the ballot serves only to siphon votes from the Democratic candidate. In this way, the right judicial decision (to keep her on the ballot) turns out to be the wrong political decision (Stein’s candidacy serves only those at home and abroad who would weaken American liberal democracy).

If, however, the adversaries of the American liberal democratic tradition won a small victory by keeping Stein on the ballot to pull left-learning voters, they suffered an equal defeat yesterday when the Wisconsin Elections Commission ruled to keep Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the Wisconsin ballot. MAGA-supporting RFK Jr. wanted to be off the Wisconsin ballot precisely because he knows (with what’s left of his brain) that he draws from MAGA-leaning voters.

Live by siphoning, perish by siphoning. These scheming candidates and their foreign backers are as risible as they are wrong.

Through all this, the right choice is stark and the imperative clear: Harris-Walz. Never Trump means never Trump.


Daily Bread for 9.25.22: Putin Rigs the Vote

Good morning. Sunday in Whitewater will be windy with afternoon thundershowers and a high of 65. Sunrise is 6:46 AM and sunset 6:45 PM for 11h 59m 24s of daytime. The moon is new with 0.1% of its visible disk illuminated.   On this day in 1237, England and Scotland sign the Treaty of York, establishing…

Daily Bread for 3.21.22: Putin’s Torrent of Lies

Good morning. Monday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 71.  Sunrise is 6:54 AM and sunset 7:09 PM for 12h 14m 36s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 88.1% of its visible disk illuminated.  Whitewater’s Library Board meets at 6:30 PM. On this day in 1965, Martin Luther King…

Daily Bread for 2.27.22: Ronald Harold, Donald John, and Vladimir Vladimirovich

Good morning. Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 37.  Sunrise is 6:32 AM and sunset 5:42 PM for 11h 10m 39s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 11.9% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1904, Wisconsin’s second state capitol burns: On this date fire destroyed the…

The Fifth Columnist at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

While a fellow traveler – however detestable – is merely someone who sympathizes with an adversarial foreign power, a fifth columnist is someone who actively cooperates – colludes, one might say – with a hostile foreign state. For all the talk of no collusion (styled as NO COLLUSION in a bigoted authoritarian’s tweets), Trump at…

Trump-Russia Roundup

While the proper focus against Trumpism involves a zealous lawful effort against Trump and his leading operatives, there is also a problem of Trumpism down to the local level. In both cases, officials advancing Trumpism ignore the overwhelming evidence of his betrayal of our own people to the benefit of a hostile foreign power. As…

Another Fellow Traveler Heard From

A fellow traveler is someone who supports a group – typically used pejoratively as a group adversarial to one’s society – without being a member; a fifth columnist takes active, but hidden, steps to undermine one’s society on behalf of a foreign adversary. (Neither term, of course, applies merely to people who like to vacation abroad…

The Fellow Travelers

Jeremy Peters nicely describes the descent of far too many into mere fellow travelers for Putin, a dictator, imperialist, and murderer (Peters is far too mild about Putin, but he’s ably identified the self-hating Americans who support Russian’s dictator, and some of whom are perhaps even fifth columnists for Russia): WASHINGTON — Years before the…