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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.

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  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:

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.

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  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, Politics, Populists, Schimel, Wisconsin, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 2.24.25: Brad Schimel Experiences the Insatiable Nature of Populism

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 53. Sunrise is 6:38 and sunset is 5:58, for 11 hours 0 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 15 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 5:30 PM. The Whitewater School Board goes into closed session shortly after 6 PM, and resumes open session at 7 PM.

On this day in 1917, the U.S. ambassador Walter Hines Page to the United Kingdom reports to Pres. Wilson on the contents of the German Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany pledges to ensure the return of New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona to Mexico if Mexico declared war on the United States.

Populism is a restless and relentless group movement, historically sometimes of the left, sometimes of the right. In our time, we have conservative populists, Trumpists, MAGA, or however else they choose to describe themselves. Their restlessness, their insatiability for ever-purer expressions of the movement, leads to splintering into new factions. (Dark MAGA is like this: Trump no longer gives some of these gentlemen the thrill that Musk now does.)

Nor does a moment like this does respect institutional boundaries; on the contrary, it seeks to overturn institutional standards no matter how sound.

Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel, much the MAGA man, now finds that other populists really don’t care much for the WISGOP institutionalism on which his campaign depends:

WASHINGTON – At a recent campaign stop, conservative state Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel acknowledged a “turf war” playing out among Wisconsin Republicans.

He said the party is “at risk of becoming divided” but suggested the time to have those discussions is after the high court election on April 1.

“This battle is going on,” Schimel said, according to audio obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “My message to everybody is … I need 100% of the conservative vote. We all have to grab an oar and work at this. If we don’t, we lose.”

“So can you shut it down for 49 more days, and let’s win this race,” he added. “And then you know what? Then duke it out.”

The infighting Schimel referenced is a behind-the-scenes clash between the conservative dark money group Turning Point Action and the Republican Party of Wisconsin. 

The simmering tensions between the two camps are largely over the party’s infrastructure and leadership in the key battleground state. It’s a spat that has grown increasingly public following the November election and appears to be coming to a head as county parties and congressional districts elect their leadership for the next two years.  

See Lawrence Andrea, Behind the scenes of the Supreme Court race, a ‘turf war’ simmers between Wisconsin GOP and Turning Point, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, February 24, 2025.

In his plea, Schimel reveals himself a nervous politico first, and a judge second. That’s unsurprising, because he admits that as a judge, he’s been slothful. See Brad Schimel’s Work Ethic (“I’m home for dinner most nights now,” he said. “I shoot in two sporting clays leagues. Or I was until I made this announcement (to run for the Supreme Court). I was shooting in two shooting clays leagues a week. I was doing all this, playing band rehearsals.”)

Schimel’s concern reminds one of the oft-repeated story of the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party:

From an October 2015 tweet by Adrian Bott (@cavalorn) that went viral: “I never thought leopards would eat MY face,” sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.

How AI is revealing the language of the birds:

Researchers have been eavesdropping on an unusual family of crows in Spain, collecting data on hundreds of thousands of different sounds the birds made. Small microphones recorded a variety of soft calls, far quieter than the familiar ‘caws’ people usually hear. The team then used AI to analyse the sounds and group them together. The researchers hope is to one day be able to understand the meaning of the birds’ vocalizations and perhaps even try to speak their language.

Books, Business, Daily Bread, Education, Facebook, Fact Checking, Populists, Reading, Reasoning

Daily Bread for 9.5.24: Formation Hasn’t Stopped Mattering

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 81. Sunrise is 6:25, and sunset is 7:20, for 12h 55m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 5.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1905, the Treaty of Portsmouth, mediated by President Theodore Roosevelt, ends the Russo-Japanese War.

Three years ago, during the pandemic, pondering the social media scene, I posted on Formation, General:

Some level of formation, of structure and learning, is needed to make sense of a difficult subject.

Come now the conservative populists, who are convinced that there is no field, no topic, that requires more effort than their own ‘common sense.’  They ask — they demand — that others who have committed years of formal or self-study recognize unconsidered or ill-considered populist opinions as valid as any other opinion.

They sometimes simply don’t know what they don’t know. Their ignorance of substantive study is matched by their arrogance in insisting that substantive study doesn’t matter.  Someone might tell these conservative populists that arrogance invites Nemesis, but it would take some reading for them to make sense of those cautionary words.

Why have medicine, for example when any populist can spend a few moments on Facebook and diagnose any condition? (I’ve argued, for example, against amateur epidemiology, even when well-intentioned. See Whitewater’s Local Politics 2021 — COVID-19: Skepticism and Rhetoric.)

Modern medicine, architecture, or materials science requires dedicated study. Anyone, in any era, might have said he or she possessed ‘common sense.’ And yet, and yet, those people from those earlier times often lived short lives in filth and misery.

The conservative populists enjoy lives in an era of technological and scientific accomplishment dependent on the efforts of the very experts they denigrate.

When common sense fails for these populists, when they misread medical texts and legal documents, they make the excuse that the topics were too hard or too confusing for anyone to understand.  No and no again: the texts and documents were too hard only for those who had not committed the proper amount of study to the topic.

The lack of formation —of a learned foundation in politics, history, science, or even ordinary English usage — leaves the conservative populists unimpressive to anyone outside their circle.

Still true, years after the pandemic.

Underwater bridge gives clues to ancient human arrival:

Mallorca is the largest of the Balearic islands and the sixth-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, but despite its size and location research suggests that it was among the last Mediterranean islands to be settled by humans. But exactly when people arrived on the island is a subject of much debate, with current estimates placing it at around 4,400 years ago. However, an ancient stone bridge in a flooded cave may call that timeline into question. By dating mineral deposits in the cave scientists have given a new window for when they suggest humans actually reached the island — at least 1,000 years earlier than previously thought.

Blogging, Books, City, Daily Bread, Freedom of Speech, Populists, School District

Daily Bread for 6.4.23: On Book Banning, a Law to Restrict Worse Laws

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Good morning. Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 82. Sunrise is 5:17 AM and sunset 8:29 PM for 15h 11m 45s of daytime. The moon is full with 99.9% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1876, an express train called the Transcontinental Express arrives in San Francisco,…

Conservative Populism, Daily Bread, DeSantis, Politics, Populists, Presidential Race 2024, Republicans, Trump

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

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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…

Conservative Populism, Daily Bread, Never Trump, Populists, Presidential Race 2024, Trump, Trumpism

Daily Bread for 5.11.23: ‘You Can — and You Will’

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Good morning. Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 79. Sunrise is 5:35 AM and sunset 8:06 PM for 14h 31m 28s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 63% of its visible disk illuminated. The Whitewater Aquatic and Fitness Center Subcommittee meets at 6 PM.  On this day…

Culture, Daily Bread, Kulturkampf, Libertarians, Local Government, Politics, Populists, Poverty, School District, University

Daily Bread for 3.21.23: Libertarians, Bleeding-Heart Libertarians, and All that Lies Beyond

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Good morning. Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 52. Sunrise is 6:54 AM and sunset 7:08 PM for 12h 13m 53s of daytime. The moon is new with 0.1% of its visible disk illuminated.  The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.   On this day in 1952, Alan Freed presents the…