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

 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:

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:

Daily Bread for 1.3.24: Hockey, Hayek, and Hope

 Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 34. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset 4:33 for 9h 08m 11s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 54.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Library Board meets in closed session at 4:30 PM

On this day in 1777, General Washington defeats British General Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton.


Whitewater has had significant political activity throughout 2023, and the local Spring Election awaits the city in April. 

There’s more than one way to think about these changes, but political, economic, and social dynamism is common across America. It’s not merely common, but felicitously a source of our national strength, making us the envy of other peoples around the world.

A few remarks about hockey and Friedrich Hayek (not usually associated) explain much of Whitewater’s recent politics. 

Consider ice hockey, starting with the rink on which that game is played.  

By Jecowa at English Wikipedia. Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1914457

Odd, isn’t it? Circles and lines across a sheet of ice, on a rink where those markings and the players skating in competition would seem incomprehensible to someone unfamiliar with the game.

And yet, and yet, for a little bit of time and willingness, someone can learn about hockey and enjoy watching or playing a game. Indeed, without markings on the ice, and rules of the game, there would be no National Hockey League. A few people might be on a few rinks, but those few would never unite into a profitable professional association. 

As it turns out, local governments have their own version of rules from federal & state statutes, local ordinances, and local policies those communities adopt as binding. In Whitewater, relevant & material statutes, ordinances, and policies are compiled (in significant part) in the city’s Good Government Manual and the CDA Rules of Procedure.  

A key point that cannot be emphasized enough: these federal and state statutes, city ordinances, and local policies pre-date the current city administration. They are not a new development. They always should have been, and now are, being read and applied as they were meant to be applied. They were years ago lawfully drafted and adopted. If their application has seemed alien to some in Whitewater, then it is because some have unfortunately become unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the lawful rules and procedures for this very town. 

To do otherwise would be to expect the equivalent of a hockey game where players follow no rules or different rules, crashing into each other and the boards. 

And look, and look — this libertarian blogger is not a member of the government and never will be. This libertarian blogger has never represented the government and never will. It is right, however, to follow the rules properly established at federal, state, and local levels until they are lawfully revised. 

Deprecation of these rules does not advance this city; it perpetuates backwardness. 

This brings us to Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek. Hayek was an opponent of most state planning, and rightly so. He understood, however, that some level of preliminary planning (and this meant government planning) was necessary to make private success possible. His remarks on this point in The Road to Serfdom are oft-quoted:

Nor is “planning” a medicine which, taken in small doses, can produce the effects for which one might hope from its thoroughgoing application. Both competition and central direction become poor and inefficient tools if they are incomplete; they are alternative principles used to solve the same problem, and a mixture of the two means that neither will really work and that the result will be worse than if either system had been consistently relied upon. Or, to express it differently, planning and competition can be combined only by planning for competition but not by planning against competition.

It is of the utmost importance to the argument of this book for the reader to keep in mind that the planning against which all our criticism is directed is solely the planning against competition the planning which is to be substituted tuted for competition. This is the more important, as we cannot, within the scope of this book, enter into a discussion of the very necessary planning which is required to make competition as effective and beneficial as possible. But as in current usage “planning” has become almost synonymous with the former kind of planning, it will sometimes be inevitable for the sake of brevity to refer to it simply as planning, even though this means leaving to our opponents a very good word meriting a better fate.

(Emphasis added.) 

F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom 89 (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, Volume 2 ed. 2007).

Government’s orderly planning, including the application of established policies, makes government responsible. It also leaves government in its proper, limited place. 

Hope for a better future is not only — and not principally — to be found within the walls of city hall. 312 W. Whitewater Street is merely one address in this city. Whitewater is a city of fifteen thousand, not fifteen. Whitewater’s many private needs will not be met through fights among government men or recriminations among them. 

The purpose of a well-regulated government, like a well-regulated militia, is (and must be) to protect the flourishing of private life. 

There is much that must be accomplished in this regard. See Waiting for Whitewater’s Dorothy Day, Something Transcendent, and in the MeantimeAn Oasis Strategy, The Community Space, People Bring Color. From Government, Failure is Both Loss and Distraction, and The Shape of Decline to Come (and How to Carry On).

Hope comes privately and stays privately. She’s more likely to arrive, and more likely to stay, in a city of rules-based limited government.


What’s Up: January 2024 Skywatching Tips from NASA:

Daily Bread for 12.13.23: Politics & News Avoidance

 Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 39. Sunrise is 7:17 and sunset 4:21 for 9h 03m 48s of daytime. The moon is new with 0.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

 Whitewater’s Tech Park Board Executive Committee meets at 8 AM and the Landmarks Commission at 4:30 PM

 On this day in 1769, Dartmouth College is founded by the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, with a royal charter from King George III, on land donated by Royal governor John Wentworth.


  An except from a new book describes the authors’ study on the relationship between news avoidance and politics. Benjamin Toff, Ruth Palmer, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen ask So who are the consistent news avoiders? (‘No single variable is more predictive of whether someone consistently avoids news than their level of interest in politics and civic affairs’): 

In general, consistent news avoidance tends to be more common among young people, women, and lower socioeconomic classes. There are also some important political divides regarding who avoids news. In the United States especially, it is much more common among people on the right ideologically. In most other parts of the world, it is more common on the left. But a bigger and more persistent gap lies along what the political scientists Yanna Krupnikov and John Barry Ryan call “the other divide”: the divide between people who are deeply involved in politics and rarely, if ever, avoid news consistently and those who are largely indifferent toward politics and avoid news far more often. To be clear, we are not suggesting that all or even most young people, women, or people of lower socioeconomic classes avoid news consistently. That is verifiably not the case. But if you do meet someone who consumes practically no news at all, there is a good chance they will fall into one or more of these categories.

Excerpt from Avoiding the News: Reluctant Audiences for Journalism by Benjamin Toff, Ruth Palmer, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen. Copyright (c) 2023 Columbia University Press. 


Behold, a Leucistic American Badger

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Point Reyes National Seashore (@pointreyesnps)

Daily Bread for 7.2.23: Gerrymandered Speaker Complains About Minority Scholarship Program

Good morning. Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 82. Sunrise is 5:21 AM and sunset 8:36 PM for 15h 15m 43s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 98.6% of its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater’s Independence Holiday events continue today at the Cravath Lakefront: Wristband Sessions 12-4PM, 5-9PM Food Vendors…

Daily Bread for 6.26.23: It’s More than the Economy, and That Will Affect How People View the Economy

Good morning. Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 73. Sunrise is 5:18 AM and sunset 8:37 PM for 15h 19m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 51.3% of its visible disk illuminated. The Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM. The Whitewater School Board goes into closed…

Daily Bread for 6.9.23: Gallagher Won’t Run, So Baldwin’s Looking to Win in a Walk

Good morning. Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 80. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:32 PM for 15h 16m 14s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 63.2% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1973, Secretariat wins the U.S. Triple Crown. Embed from Getty Images…

Daily Bread for 6.6.23: How Influential Will Janet Protasiewicz’s Supreme Court Win Be?

Good morning. Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 77. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:30 PM for 15h 13m 43s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 92.4% of its visible disk illuminated.  Whitewater’s Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.  On this day in 1944, Operation Overlord begins…

Daily Bread for 5.24.23: For Trump & DeSantis, It’s One or Neither

Good morning. Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 71. Sunrise is 5:23 AM and sunset 8:20 PM for 14h 56m 43s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 22.3% of its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater’s Board of Review meets at 6:30 PM.  On this day in 1961, Freedom…

Daily Bread for 4.18.23: A Survey on Wisconsin’s Civic and Political Life (3 of 3)

Good morning. Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 53. Sunrise is 6:07 AM and sunset 7:40 PM for 13h 33m 54s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 3.8% of its visible disk illuminated. The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM. On this day in 1775, the British…

Daily Bread for 4.16.23: A Survey on Wisconsin’s Civic and Political Life (1 of 3)

Good morning. Sunday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 59. Sunrise is 6:10 AM and sunset 7:38 PM for 13h 28m 25s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 16.2% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1926, Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts.…