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Speaker Vos

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:

Daily Bread, Law, Legislature, Litigation, Open Government, Public Records, Speaker Vos

Daily Bread for 12.29.24: Speaker Robin Vos Tries to Shirk Responsibility (Yet Again)

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 42. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset is 4:29, for 9 hours, 4 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1845, the United States annexes the Republic of Texas and admits it as the 28th state.

When lawmakers use public funds wastefully, taxpayers bear those costs. The costs send a signal to those taxpayers that the public deserves greater frugality from lawmakers. The waste is unfortunate; the signal to taxpayers, however, acts as a call for scrutiny over those lawmakers. When lawmakers violate the law, and private parties sue successfully over those violations, the public cost of that litigation sends a message to taxpayers that their public representatives have burdened them once again (and so should be replaced).

Speaker Robin Vos, however, does not want the WISGOP Legislature’s failures to reach taxpayers. No and no again: Vos has wasted money, and the public should feel that he has; Vos’s position has lost in the courts, and the public should feel that he’s lost.

Predictably, Vos is trying to avoid the price of his own violations of the law:

A three-member Wisconsin appeals court has awarded $241,000 in legal fees and costs to the liberal group American Oversight in two open records lawsuits it brought against Assembly Speaker Robin Vos over the investigation he ordered into the 2020 presidential election.

The Waukesha-based District II Court of Appeals rejected Vos’ efforts to reverse Dane County Circuit Court decisions ordering the state to pick up $143,211 in legal fees for one American Oversight case and $98,000 for a second one. The rulings make clear the costs will ultimately be paid by taxpayers.

….

The three appellate judges reviewing the public records cases were two conservatives — Mark Gundrum and Maria Lazar — and one liberal, Lisa Neubauer.

See Daniel Bice, Appeals Court upholds $241,000 in legal fees to liberal group over Gableman records, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 27, 2024.

If the public doesn’t want to bear these costs, then the public needs a better majority, and a better speaker. Vos is a below-average steward of public funds and if the public wants Vos, well, it’s going to be more expensive than it would be with a competent Assembly speaker.

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

(Imagine being someone — in Whitewater, let’s say — who thought that a call from Vos was a sign of importance and influence. Honest to goodness, someone who thought that would be a ridiculous person. A call from Vos? Even the receptionist shouldn’t have to take that call, and it would be a burden merely to retrieve his message from voicemail.)

See also from FREE WHITEWATER an entire category dedicated to Robin Vos. It’s a years-long account of his serial failures. (Best not to read near mealtime.)

One eco-friendly way to recycle Christmas trees — feed them to goats:

Daily Bread, Foxconn, Legislature, Speaker Vos, Wisconsin, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 12.19.24: The Wisconsin Man Who Backed Foxconn Now Brings You Government Efficiency

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be snowy with a high of 29. Sunrise is 7:21 and sunset is 4:23, for 9 hours, 2 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 79.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1776, Thomas Paine publishes the first of a series of pamphlets in The Pennsylvania Journal entitled “The American Crisis.”

Of past performance, consider from 2017: Vos: Foxconn Deal Will Be Good For Taxpayers. And yet, and yet, these are ahistorical times, where past performance is ignored:

MADISON – A new Assembly committee will focus in the next session on government efficiency, inspired by a similar federal department to be run in part by Elon Musk.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said in a Wednesday interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the new committee will be known as GOAT: Governmental Oversight, Accountability and Transparency Committee.

See Laura Schulte and Hope Karnopp, Robin Vos to create government efficiency committee inspired by Elon Musk’s DOGE, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 18, 2024.

Binary star system found near monster black hole:

A pair of stars orbiting one another has been found near the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT).
Full Story: Astronomers discover 1st binary stars orbiting supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way

Conspiracy Theories, Daily Bread, Gableman, Legislature, Misconduct, Speaker Vos, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 11.26.24: Vos Right at Least Once! (But He Was Originally Wrong About Even This)

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 36. Sunrise is 7:00, and sunset is 4:23, for 9 hours, 23 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 18.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1838, the Legislature assembles in Madison for the first time:

[A]fter moving from the temporary capital in Burlington, Iowa, the Wisconsin Territorial Legislature assembled in Madison for the first time. Two years earlier, when the territorial legislature had met for the first time in Belmont, many cities were mentioned as possibilities for the permanent capital — Cassville, Fond du Lac, Milwaukee, Platteville, Mineral Point, Racine, Belmont, Koshkonong, Wisconsinapolis, Peru, and Wisconsin City. Madison won the vote, and funds were authorized to erect a suitable building in which lawmakers would conduct the people’s business. Progress went so slowly, however, that some lawmakers wanted to relocate the seat of government to Milwaukee, where they also thought they would find better accomodations than in the wilds of Dane Co. When the legislature finally met in Madison in November 1838 there was only an outside shell to the new Capitol. The interior was not completed until 1845, more than six years after it was supposed to be finished.

One might imagine that Speaker Robin Vos has never been right about anything. It’s not true! He’s right about at least one thing:

In a Sunday morning interview on WISN-TV’s “Upfront,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos repeated calls for former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who he hired, then fired, to investigate the 2020 election, to be disbarred and “never allowed to practice law in Wisconsin again.”

“I certainly hope Michael Gableman loses his law license. I hope he goes back to work at Home Depot, where he was working prior to working for us,” Vos said. “As I look at what the Office of Lawyer Regulation is saying happened, it’s an embarrassment for anybody who practices law.”

The Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation filed a disciplinary complaint Tuesday alleging Gableman violated the Rules of Professional Conduct for Attorneys, including engaging in “disruptive behavior” during a court hearing, making false statements about the integrity of a judge and violating the state’s open records law.

Emphasis added.

See Hope Karnopp, Robin Vos again calls for Michael Gableman to be disbarred after 2020 election review, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, November 25, 2024.

Vos is right that Gableman should lose his law license, but it was Vos, himself, who hired Gableman: “working for us.”

Even on the rare occasion that Vos proves right, it turns out he’s to blame for the original wrong.

Quick snack:

Daily Bread, Elections, Gableman, Speaker Vos, State Government, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 7.10.24: Secure Wisconsin Elections Despite the Shouting

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 81. Sunrise is 5:27 and sunset 8:33 for 15h 06m 34s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 20.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Lakes Advisory Committee meets at 4:30 PM.

On this day in 1832, Fort Koshkonong’s construction begins:

General Henry Atkinson and his troops built Fort Koshkonong after being forced backwards from the bog area of the “trembling lands” in their pursuit of Black Hawk. The Fort, later known as Fort Atkinson, was described by Atkinson as “a stockade work flanked by four block houses for the security of our supplies and the accommodation of the sick.” It was also on this date that Atkinson discharged a large number of Volunteers from his army in order to decrease stress on a dwindling food supply and to make his force less cumbersome. One of the dismissed volunteers was future president, Abraham Lincoln, whose horse was stolen in Cold Spring, Wisconsin, and was forced to return to New Salem, Illinois by foot and canoe.

After years of scheming, Speaker Robin Vos finds himself battling the conspiracy theorists (like Michael Gableman) that he once hired and encouraged. Yet, they are conspiracy theorists at the core, men and women with false, indeed crackpot, notions.

In fact, as Henry Redman reports, Election experts defend system, downplay threats at Milwaukee event:

At the event, hosted jointly by the Milwaukee Press Club, Rotary Club of Milwaukee and Wisconsin Alliance for Civic Trust, Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe, Milwaukee Elections Commission Director Paulina Gutierrez and former Republican state Sen. Kathy Bernier discussed how election conspiracy theories have affected the state over the last three years, the impact of last week’s state Supreme Court decision to again allow the use of absentee ballot drop boxes and how election officials across the state are preparing for this year’s elections. 

….

At the event on Tuesday, all three speakers downplayed the threat of incidents like that, saying most observers simply sit and watch the process. 

Bernier noted that having skeptics get trained to work the polls or come to the polls to observe often helps to assuage their fears when they find the system is carefully designed with multiple checks and the process is generally quite boring. 

Wolfe added that having people observe the voting process is a “healthy part of Election Day.” 

Many of the conspiracy theories about the 2020 election in Wisconsin have stemmed from the process of counting absentee ballots, especially in Milwaukee. Most communities in the state count absentee ballots at the polling location where each absent voter would have gone to vote in person. In Milwaukee and a handful of other communities, all the ballots are sent to one “Central Count” location where they’re all tallied together. 

Under state law, ballots cannot begin to be processed until polls open at 8 a.m. on Election Day. 

Conspiracy theories have abounded about the absentee process and Milwaukee’s central count, alleging that Democratic operatives worked to “ballot harvest” and force people to cast absentee votes for Biden or that large “vote dumps” from Milwaukee changed the results for Biden in the middle of the night. 

Bernier said that she doesn’t think ballot harvesting really happens, questioning how it would even occur while Wolfe said these allegations are often dispelled with simple explanations to people with questions. 

Prague Zoo hopes tons of ice will help animals beat the summer heat:

Courts, Daily Bread, Law, Recall, Speaker Vos, State Government

Daily Bread for 7.9.24: Vos’s Forever War

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 80. Sunrise is 5:26 and sunset 8:34 for 15h 09m 03s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 13 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1943, the Allied invasion of Sicily begins, leading to the downfall of Mussolini and forcing Hitler to break off the Battle of Kursk.

Update, 7.10.24: Wisconsin judge rejects attempt to revive recall targeting top GOP lawmaker.

For Speaker Robin Vos, it’s a forever war with the conservative populists: Organizers of recall targeting a top Wisconsin Republican appeal to court. Scott Bauer reports:

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Organizers of the effort to recall a top Wisconsin Republican have appealed the bipartisan state elections commission’s rejectionof their petitions in court.

Recall organizers filed their appeal in Dane County Circuit Court on Friday, a week after their effort to recall Assembly Speaker Robin Vos effort failed due to officials determining that not enough valid signatures were collected.

It will now be up to the court to decide whether organizers submitted enough valid signatures on time to force a recall election. If successful, Vos would only be removed from office for the remainder of the calendar year. He is running for another two-year term that would begin in January if he wins the November election.

The elections commission determined that signatures collected beyond the 60-day circulation window should not count. The filing deadline was extended by two days due to the Memorial Day holiday, but the commission said that deadline for collecting signatures was not also extended.

Such is Vos’s fate, forever. There’s no Wisconsin public position he could hold that would not meet with controversy from left, center, and right. This is where Vos’s twenty-year career in the Wisconsin Assembly has brought him.

See also Update: WEC Says Not Enough Signatures in the Correct Time for a Recall Against Vos.

KOENIGSEGG Jesko Absolut | 0-400-0 km/h:

Courts, Daily Bread, Law, Recall, Speaker Vos, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 6.28.24: Update: WEC Says Not Enough Signatures in the Correct Time for a Recall Against Vos

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will see clouds and scattered showers with a high of 75. Sunrise is 5:19 and sunset 8:37 for 15h 17m 55s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 54 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1832, General Henry Atkinson and the Second Army begin their trip into the Wisconsin wilderness in a major effort against Black Hawk. The “Army of the Frontier” was formed of 400 U.S. Army Regulars and 2,100 volunteer militiamen to participate in the Black Hawk War. The troops were headed toward the Lake Koshkonong area where the main camp of the British Band was rumored to be located. 

On this day in 1950, the Korean People’s Army kills almost a thousand doctors, nurses, inpatient civilians, and wounded soldiers in the Seoul National University Hospital massacre.

With the help of a Wisconsin Elections Commission decision, Vos slips away from the rightwing recall effort against him. See from Wednesday Enough Signatures for a Recall Against Vos citing reporting from that time (“Perhaps there will be a recall against Speaker Robin Vos after all. Rich Kremer reports WEC staff: Vos recall organizers submitted enough signatures, but legal question remains“).

The WEC has made its decision, on a 4-2 vote:

For the second time this year, the Wisconsin Elections Commission has ruled conservative activists failed to gather enough valid signatures to recall Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos from office, this time finding that some of the signatures were collected after the legal deadline.

In a 4-2 vote, the commission found that 188 signatures were collected by the Racine Recall Committee outside of a 60-day window in state law. That’s despite a recommendation by  commission attorneys two days earlier saying recall organizers had collected enough signatures to force an election.

At issue were around 188 signatures collected on May 27, which was Memorial Day, and May 28. Because organizers gathered only 16 signatures more than required, subtracting 188 from that total sunk the petition.

The motion to deem the recall petition insufficient was made by Commissioner Don Millis, who was appointed to his seat by Vos in 2022.

Before the vote, Commissioner Mark Thomsen, a Democratic appointee, urged his colleagues to vote against Millis’ motion “that saves his guy,” insinuating that Millis was protecting Vos. Thomsen noted that some members of the recall effort “probably want to put us in prison” because of past decisions, but he said the Wisconsin Constitution gives them the right to recall officeholders.

“Personally, I think the recall is a waste of time, waste of money,” Thomsen said. “But there is a constitutional right for these folks and for us to say we are going to throw the sufficiency out now on this technical rule is going to be a farce.”

Rail bridge connecting South Dakota and Iowa collapses in record-breaking floodwaters:

Courts, Daily Bread, Law, Recall, Speaker Vos, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 6.26.24: Enough Signatures for a Recall Against Vos

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will become partly sunny in the afternoon with a high of 82. Sunrise is 5:18 and sunset 8:37 for 15h 18m 56s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 75.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1974, the Universal Product Code is scanned at a retail store for the first time to sell a package of Wrigley’s chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio.

Perhaps there will be a recall against Speaker Robin Vos after all. Rich Kremer reports WEC staff: Vos recall organizers submitted enough signatures, but legal question remains (“Because Wisconsin Supreme Court declared old legislative districts unconstitutional, whether Vos can be recalled in his old district ‘remains an unresolved legal question’ “)

The recall organizers have enough signatures:

Recall organizer Matthew Snorek said he submitted more than 9,000 signatures to the WEC on May 28. After an initial review, WEC staff determined that organizers turned in 6,866 valid signatures from residents in Vos’ old 63rd Assembly District. 

In order to trigger a recall election organizers needed 6,850 signatures, which equates to 25 percent of the number of people who voted in that district during the last election for governor. According to the WEC staff memo, they cleared that mark by just 16 signatures.

The legal question:

But whether Vos can even be recalled from the 63rd Assembly District “remains an unresolved legal question” according to the WEC staff memo. That’s because the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberal majority declared in December that maps drawn by Republicans in 2022 were unconstitutional, ruling that no future elections could be held using those districts. That includes Vos’ old 63rd Assembly District. 

The WEC asked the court to clarify whether the old maps or new maps passed by Republicans and signed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in February should be used for potential recall elections. Justices declined that request in April, stating the commission, not the court, has the responsibility for administering elections. 

While the Wisconsin Elections Commission may see this as an ‘unresolved legal question,’ the Wisconsin Supreme Court does not. The WEC has a decision to make. They can turn to past Wisconsin Supreme Court orders (Clarke v. WEC, 2023 WI 79; No. 2023AP1399-OA Clarke v. Wisconsin Elections Commission), but it is the WEC that will have to decide.

Speaker Vos has incited opposition from all quarters. In his political maneuvering, Vos is like a man who, over many years, carelessly scattered banana peels on the floor, only to find that he’s now unsure which way safely to turn.

Metro station floods in China’s Changsha city:

Severe flooding caused by heavy rainfall inundated streets and infrastructure in central China’s Hunan province on Monday (June 24), eyewitness footage shared on social media showed. Reuters was able to confirm the location and the date of the footage.

Archaeology, Daily Bread, Elections, Recall, Speaker Vos, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 6.10.24: So Is This a Political Crisis for Robin Vos?

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 69. Sunrise is 5:15 and sunset 8:33 for 15h 17m 25s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 17.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Planning & Architectural Review Commission meets at 6 PM.

 On this day in 1999,  NATO suspends its airstrikes after Slobodan Milosevic agrees to withdraw Serbian forces from Kosovo.

It’s possible that Speaker Robin Vos is “in the flight of his life” over a possible recall and then November election campaign, as emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Mordecai Lee contends. See Rich Kremer ‘The fight for his life’: Vos faces 2 challengers in district race who helped with ongoing recall (‘A Republican primary challenger and independent candidate facing off against longtime Assembly Speaker Robin Vos assisted with second effort to remove him from office’).

Kremer reports:

The Wisconsin Elections Committee is currently vetting more than 9,000 signatures submitted by organizers of the Racine Recall Committee. Committee members are confident they’ll have enough signatures to trigger a recall election, despite falling short with their first attempt earlier this year. 

A Friday press release from the Racine Recall Committee says the group is “extremely confident” it has enough signatures. A statement from the Vos-aligned group Wisconsinites for Liberty Fund posted by WisPolitics last week claims recall organizers have “once again fallen woefully short on collecting the required number of signatures.”

On Friday afternoon, Vos filed a challenge to the Racine Recall committee’s petition, claiming that organizers initiated it in the wrong Assembly District. 

A press release from Vos’ campaign called the second recall attempt a failure. It claims organizers allowed hundreds of people to sign recall petitions multiple times and states 2,000 signatures were collected from outside Vos’ old 63rd Assembly District. 

Vos is now running in the new 33rd Assembly District, where he will face up to three challengers, two of them people who have helped the latest recall effort.

They include Andrew Cegielski of East Troy, who plans to run against Vos in the Republican primary, Kelly Clark of Sturtevant, who plans to run in the general election as an Independent, and Democrat Alan Kupsik of Lake Geneva.

See also FREE WHITEWATER’s dedicated Speaker Vos category.

So is this a political crisis for Robin Vos? At the least, one can say that Vos’s tenure has been a political crisis for others.

There are probably a few people — including in Whitewater — who are obtuse enough to think that dropping Vos’s name still reflects well on them. If doing so ever reflected well on those so inclined, it’s been so long that only historians and archeologists can mark that ancient time.

World’s first drone delivery on Mount Everest a success:

Bad Ideas, Daily Bread, Speaker Vos, UW System, Wisconsin, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 6.4.24: Regent Bob Atwell Yields and Resigns (So Much for Vos’s Advice)

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with nighttime thunderstorms and a high of 82. Sunrise is 5:17 and sunset 8:29 for 15h 12m 31s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 4.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1861,  Dr. Erastus B. Wolcott, a Milwaukee surgeon, performs the first recorded removal of a diseased kidney. 

On this day in 1989, the Tiananmen Square protests are suppressed in Beijing, leading to a massacre by the People’s Liberation Army, with between 241 and 10,000 dead (an unofficial estimate).

FREE WHITEWATER has been following the controversy Regent Bob Atwell created by taking Robin Vos’s advice to remain on the Board of Regents past Atwell’s term. See Another WISGOP Holdover (After an Encouraging Reminder from Lifetime Schemer Robin Vos) and Update on Another WISGOP Holdover.

Atwell has now yielded and resigned from the Regents, confirming once again that listening to Robin Vos is a sucker’s play. Kelly Meyerhofer reports Conservative UW Regent Bob Atwell resigns, clearing way for new appointee to serve:

A conservative University of Wisconsin regent who planned to remain on the board despite his term ending has resigned, clearing the way for his successor to join the board.

Former Republican Gov. Scott Walker appointed Bob Atwell to the UW Board of Regents for a term that ended May 1. Atwell emailed UW System leaders late last month about his plan to continue serving until he resigned or his successor was confirmed by the GOP-controlled state Senate. He noted his replacement hadn’t even been named and he hoped his extension would improve communication between the Legislature and the board.

The state Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that political appointees can remain in their posts until the Senate confirms their successor because the expiration of a term doesn’t in itself create a vacancy.

Evers on May 31 announced Timothy Nixon would take Atwell’s spot for a term ending in 2031. Nixon, who earned a bachelor’s degree from UW-Green Bay and a law degree from UW-Madison, is a bankruptcy lawyer for Godfrey & Kahn.

Atwell resigned Monday, according to an email he sent to UW leaders and shared with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 

Atwell is claiming his actions were ‘misinterpreted,’ but it is Atwell who followed Vos’s lousy advice and declined to change course until he, Atwell, faced public criticism. The best way to avoid being ‘misinterpreted’ is to avoid counsel from men whose advice leads to ‘misinterpretation.’

Which men would those be? Men like this:

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

Baby Bats via Bat Conservation International:

Crapweasels, Daily Bread, Speaker Vos, UW System, Wisconsin, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 6.3.24: Update on Another WISGOP Holdover

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 80. Sunrise is 5:17 and sunset 8:28 for 15h 11m 28s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 10.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Equal Opportunities Commission meets at 5 PM, and the Police & Fire Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1965,  NASA launches Gemini 4, a NASA crew’s first multi-day space mission. Ed White, a crew member, performs the first American spacewalk.

Here’s an update on yesterday’s post about Another WISGOP Holdover (After an Encouraging Reminder from Lifetime Schemer Robin Vos). Robert Atwell, who has signaled he’ll overstay his term in the Board of Regents, cannot say no other nominees are pending. Henry Redman reports Evers makes three appointments to UW Board of Regents despite Walker appointee’s refusal to leave:

Gov. Tony Evers on Friday announced three appointments to the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, including one to replace an appointee of Gov. Scott Walker who has said he won’t leave his position despite the expiration of his term. 

In a news release announcing his appointments to the board, which contains 14 citizen members, Evers did not address Robert Atwell’s statement earlier this week that he would be remaining on the board, but said that the body is at a “critical juncture.” 

“Our UW System is at a critical juncture after a decade-long war waged on higher education by Republican lawmakers in our state, the devastating results of which we are seeing firsthand as campuses close their doors, layoff staff, and cut programs,” Evers said. “The work of the UW Board of Regents is as important as ever, and I have full confidence that the three individuals I am appointing today are ready and prepared to face these challenges head-on, to do what is in the best interest for our students, faculty, and staff, and to ensure we have the fully funded, fully functioning UW System that Wisconsinites deserve and that meets the needs of our students, our workforce, and our local communities.”

On Monday, Atwell said in an email to UW System leaders that he wouldn’t be leaving. He’s able to remain on the board because of a legal precedent set by the state Supreme Court after a Walker appointee to the state Natural Resources Board refused to leave for over a year past the expiration of his term. The precedent states that so long as the state Senate, currently controlled by Republicans, does not confirm an appointee’s replacement, that person can remain in their post indefinitely. Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe has also used the ruling to remain in her post despite opposition from Republicans to her continued service in the role. 

Evers appointed Tim Nixon, Jack Salzwedel, and Desmond Adongo to seven year terms. 

Nixon, a commercial lawyer, was appointed to replace Atwell. He has received three degrees from UW schools. 

Can stay and should stay aren’t the same concepts; a well-ordered system is one in which should trumps can.

Conditions allow firefighters to make progress in containing Corral Fire:

Crapweasels, Daily Bread, Speaker Vos, UW System, Wisconsin, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 6.2.24: Another WISGOP Holdover (After an Encouraging Reminder from Lifetime Schemer Robin Vos)

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 77. Sunrise is 5:17 and sunset 8:28 for 15h 10m 23s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 19.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1966,  Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon, becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to soft-land on another world.

Readers will recall Fred Prehn, the dentist-cranberry farmer who refused to leave his seat on the state’s Natural Resouces Board at the expiration of his term. Although the Wisconsin Supreme Court, then with a conservative majority, found his actions lawful, Prehn later left that board, in the way that even the most stubborn ticks dislodge themselves after they’ve gourged long enough. See Tiny Fred Prehn, Fred Prehn, the Most Self-Aware Man in All History, and Frederick Prehn finally resigns from Natural Resources Board.

Now comes another, as Todd Richmond reports Republican-appointed University of Wisconsin regent refuses to step down when term ends:

Then-Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, appointed Robert Atwell to the Board of Regents in May 2017. His seven-year term ends this month. 

Atwell sent an email to Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman, regents President Karen Walsh and regents Executive Director Megan Wasley on Monday saying he won’t step down until he chooses to resign or the state Senate confirms a successor. 

The state Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that political appointees don’t have to leave their posts until the Senate confirms their successor. Atwell said in his email that Assembly Speaker Robin Vos reminded him that he could remain in his position on the regents.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has yet to announce Atwell’s successor. 

“I knew Bob Atwell as a person of high personal integrity,” Evers told The Associated Press on Saturday. “Something has changed.”

Quite a menagerie the WISGOP has: Atwell comports himself as a parasitic arachnid and Vos as a weasel. Admirers, it seems, in their own disordered but surprising fashion, of the animal kingdom.

Mass parachute jump over Normandy kicks off commemorations for the 80th anniversary of D-Day:

Parachutists jumped from World War II-era planes into now peaceful Normandy to kick off a week of ceremonies marking the 80th anniversary of D-Day. Soldiers from across the United States, Britain, Canada and other Allied nations waded ashore through hails of fire on five beaches on June 6, 1944. French officials, grateful Normandy survivors and other admirers are saying “merci” but also goodbye to the fast-dwindling number of D-Day veterans still alive. (AP video by Nicolas Garriga/Production by Jeffrey Schaeffer)

Conspiracy Theories, Crackpots, Daily Bread, Elections, Recall, Speaker Vos, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 5.29.24: Once More, With Feeling

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 68. Sunrise is 5:19 and sunset 8:25 for 15h 05m 25s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 63 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Lakes Advisory Committee meets at 4 PM.

On this day in 1848, Wisconsin becomes the 30th state to enter the Union with an area of 56,154 square miles, comprising 1/56 of the United States at the time.

On this day in 1953,  Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay become the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on Tenzing Norgay’s (adopted) 39th birthday.

Ah, persistence. Henry Redman reports Right-wing activists try for second time to recall Assembly Speaker Vos:


A group of right-wing activists enraged by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos’ failure to appease their calls for a more aggressive response to claims of election fraud and their demand that he fire the chief state election official, has for the second time filed signatures to force a recall election against Vos. 

The group tried to recall Vos earlier this year, submitting more than 10,000 signatures in support of the effort in March. However the effort failed because those 10,000 signatures did not all come from the proper district.

Which district the signatures should come from has caused some confusion among the recall petitioners and officials at the Wisconsin Elections Commission because the map under which Vos was elected have been declared unconstitutional, while the new map won’t go into effect until this fall’s elections. The recall group gathered signatures from the district Vos currently represents and the new district created under the new maps. 

The group also gathered signatures from various other parts of the state, which were immediately declared invalid. 

On Tuesday, the group announced it had gathered about 9,000 signatures. There must be 6,850 valid signatures submitted to force a recall election in the district. 

“We are highly confident we have the sufficient number,” former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman said outside the WEC offices Tuesday afternoon. 

Vos is the longest serving Assembly Speaker in state history. He’s served in the Legislature, representing a district outside of Racine, since 2005 and as the Speaker since 2013, presiding over the state Republican party’s decade-long stranglehold on legislative power. 

However right-wing activists have turned against Vos in recent years, claiming that he has not sufficiently responded to their allegations that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. 

Vos brought this on himself. He schemed with schemers who were as persistent but twice as nutty, only to have them turn on him. Dante could not have devised a poetic punishment more haunting than Vos’s fate: to be stalked forever by Michael Gableman.

See also What Vos Wrought and If At First You Don’t Succeed…

Airplane turbulence: Has it gotten worse?:

Conspiracy Theories, Crackpots, Daily Bread, Politics, Recall, Speaker Vos, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 5.16.24: What Vos Wrought

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 73. Sunrise is 5:29 and sunset 8:13 for 14h 43m 31s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 59.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

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

On this day in 1842,  the first major wagon train heading for the Pacific Northwest sets out on the Oregon Trail from Elm Grove, Missouri, with 100 pioneers.

Rich Kremer reports Dueling radio ads in southeastern Wisconsin call for, against recalling Robin Vos (‘Racine Recall Committee ad accuses Vos of blocking impeachment of top election official, while Wisconsinites for Liberty Foundation ad call recall organizers ‘out-of-state creeps’)

Conservative activists trying for a second time this year to remove Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos from office have launched a $50,000 ad campaign encouraging residents of Vos’ district to sign on to the effort. 

Meanwhile, a group aligned with the speaker is running radio ads calling recall organizers “radicals” and encouraging residents to reject the effort. 

The Racine Recall Committee’s latest radio ad accuses Vos of protecting Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe from impeachment and includes audio of him saying he would work to keep former President Donald Trump from becoming the Republican nominee.

“Vos is bad for elections, bad for Wisconsin and bad for America,” the ad said. “If you live in his district in Racine County, sign the new recall petition.” 

Here’s that radio ad against Vos:

Vos brought this on Wisconsin and himself by advancing conspiracists like Michael Gableman.

Somewhere, possibly in Whitewater, there’s someone (albeit someone impossibly dense) who thinks Robin Vos is a shrewd man whose name is worth dropping now and again.

No, and no again.

How unfortunate that Mad magazine is no longer publishing; Vos would have been a contender for that publication’s cover.

Why Does NASA Want to Explore Jupiter’s Ocean Moon?: